Peers call for crackdown on 'marine fly-tipping' of abandoned boats
It comes after authorities paid out £70,000 this year to raise two sunken boats in the Norfolk Broads
Derelict boats being abandoned in the nation's rivers and estuaries has been branded "marine fly-tipping" at Westminster.
Government action has been urged to tackle the blight, given the difficulties of tracing the owners of the dumped vessels and the cost of removal ultimately falling on the public purse.
Parliament heard it had cost the authorities £70,000 this year to raise two sunken boats in the Norfolk Broads.
Responding to a question on the problem in Parliament, Labour frontbencher Lord Katz said responsibility for inland waterways lay with the relevant navigation authority.
The minister added: "This includes dealing with derelict or sunken boats and their removal, and any risk to the environment or to navigation.
"Navigation authorities have statutory powers to remove such boats when they deem it necessary and appropriate, but have statutory duties to do so only in certain circumstances."
But pressing the Government, Liberal Democrat Lord Teverson said: "The abandonment of vessels is a growing problem on our estuaries and rivers. It is effectively a form of marine fly-tipping.
"Can the minister note that there is no real way of tracing the owners of most recreational vessels? This means that the cost of removal often ends up as a cost for landowners, local authorities and harbourmasters.
"Should there not be at least some form of registration system for all recreational vessels so that the owners are rightly held liable for getting rid of this environmental problem on our rivers and in navigation?"
Lord Katz said: "The Canal & River Trust and the Environment Agency, the two principal navigation authorities, publish guidance on licensing and registration, and ownership is traced via these licensing and registration systems.
"Navigation authorities work hard to ensure that licence evasion rates are as low as possible and, although the Government do not get involved in operational matters, we encourage navigation authorities to work together to resolve these issues."
Tory peer Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate said: "This is a very serious matter. I think of the history of the River Hull, for instance, where the dredging authorities, in order to keep the flows going and avoid flooding in irrigation, had great problems in being able to move sunken or half-sunken boats.
"Surely something more can be done to alleviate that problem, and in particular to put some speed into its alleviation?"
In reply, the minister said: "It has long been the convention to leave this to navigation authorities to manage best. They understand best their own waterways, rivers and canals, both urban and rural."
Conservative shadow environment minister Lord Blencathra said: "Abandoned and derelict vessels... not only are unsightly and a blot on a landscape but cause terrible pollution from engine oils, diesel fuel leaking out, battery acid, and corroded metals and plastics.
"Ideally, the owners should be made to pay for their removal, but they are usually impossible to find."
He called on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to convene a conference of relevant bodies to find a solution where "the owners pay and not the taxpayer".
Lord Katz said: "Navigational authorities are independent of Government but are also responsible for enforcement action."
He added: "We believe in devolution and in making sure that bodies such as navigation authorities, which understand their patches best, can have control of them.
"We cannot have our cake and eat it and say there should be some national enforcement when we must support those navigation authorities on the ground to do the job right."