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 improve navigation assets along the non-tidal Thames.

The Environment Agency (EA) maintains its non-tidal Thames Navigation assets through the combination of a capital investment programme to deliver major refurbishment projects, and a revenue maintenance programme which sustains the safe day-day operations of these assets.

During 2025/26 the EA are investing £16.3 million on the highest priority lock refurbishment projects to benefit their Navigation customers and will support the vital retention of the River Thames water resource through the refurbishment of specific weirs.

The EA’s future investment programme has identified approximately £18 million of investment need over the next 5 years to progress more lock and weir refurbishments. This programme also focuses on the operational reliability of the Navigation assets and is planning to upgrade 22 lock operation systems, which are the main source of temporary lock breakdowns. The EA will bid for the identified funding as part of the government’s spending review process.