Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that waterways are open to all.

Access to waterways, including for recreational purposes, remains subject to licence by the relevant navigation authority or to agreement with the riparian landowner where there is no navigation authority in place.

The Government has not undertaken a specific assessment of what length of unmanaged waterways has a public right of navigation. Within the canal and major river navigation network in England and Wales (20,000 km), approximately 4,700 km have either public navigation rights or are available for licensed navigation as managed by a navigation authority.