Crown Estate devolution

McHarg, Aileen (2016) Crown Estate devolution. Edinburgh Law Review, 20 (3). pp. 388-394. ISSN 1364-9809 (https://doi.org/10.3366/elr.2016.0373)

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Abstract

One of the Smith Commission's more significant recommendations was that responsibility for managing the Crown Estate in Scotland, and the revenue generated from it, should be transferred to the Scottish Parliament.1 The Crown Estate is currently managed on a UK-wide basis by the Crown Estate Commissioners under the Crown Estate Act 1961 (“CEA”). Its origins date back to 1760, when George III surrendered the revenues from Crown lands to parliament in return for support via the civil list, an arrangement confirmed by each subsequent monarch. Today the Crown Estate consists of a mixture of hereditary Crown property rights, more recent rights vested in the Crown by statute, and modern property acquisitions. It does not comprise the entirety of Crown property rights, nor is it the personal property of the sovereign. It is, in effect, a publicly-owned property business, the revenues from which accrue to the UK Treasury.