Lord Evans of Rainow
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact that litter on canal towpaths owned and maintained by the Canal and River Trust is having on urban communities.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to open this important debate on an issue that has caused concern for canal users up and down the country. Outdoor recreation is essential for people’s well-being and health. We want more people to get out and about and the tow-paths are fantastic open spaces. Sadly, this summer, many of our tow-paths looked like Birmingham during the bin strike, discouraging people from using them for outdoor recreation. We need to change.
Earlier this year, campaigners began to speak out about the appalling amount of litter on our canal tow-paths. The Cleaner Canals Campaign has been documenting this growing problem on social media. Thanks to its efforts, the media has reported on the problem, with stories appearing on BBC News and in the Sunday Times, the Islington Tribute and the Prime Minister’s own local newspaper, the Camden New Journal. The photographic evidence shows that coffee cups, pizza boxes, Deliveroo takeaway packaging and beer cans have been piling up on the tow-path all summer. This is because people living in the centre of our cities are using our canal tow-paths as recreational spaces and there are no bins.
Residents in Stockton-on-Tees, Hayes, Islington, Manchester and even the Prime Minister’s own constituency of Camden have all raised litter as a huge problem. This is clearly a national issue. I live in Macclesfield. The principal engineer for the canal in my own area, built in 1831, was Thomas Telford. The canal is a great resource for walkers, runners and boaters, located on the edge of the Peak District. Historically, it transported coal, raw cotton, silk and finished goods into Manchester and down to the Midlands along the Grand Union Canal. What has connected Macclesfield to the world is now a vital outdoor space for local people. I use it regularly for marathon training. It is an idyllic and beautiful part of the country.
Until two years ago, the Canal & River Trust, which manages a number of our navigable canal tow-paths in England and Wales, provided bins all along our tow-paths, so that canal users could dispose of their litter responsibly. This is a question of personal responsibility, but it is also incumbent on the taxpayer-funded Canal & River Trust to maintain bins so that people can do the right thing and responsibly dispose of their litter. The trust, which has just welcomed Campbell Robb as its new chairman, says that it has saved £500,000 annually by removing the bins. Additionally, it has claimed that removing the bins has not caused an increase in litter. The evidence gathered by campaigners is clear: litter is a huge problem on urban tow-paths. In urban areas, the Canal & River Trust lets business premises to cafés that operate on the tow-path. Much of the litter that we see is an externality of business activities that directly benefit the trust.
It is important to remember that the trust has a statutory responsibility to manage litter on the tow-paths, as Ministers have confirmed in previous Answers to Written Questions. The background to the trust’s decision to cut bin services is its claim that it does not have the finances to maintain the bins. It is not only cutting bin services but campaigning for additional taxpayer funding from government. However, the £500,000 that the trust says that it has saved is just 1% of the £50 million that it receives from the taxpayer. The amount that it saved from removing the bins across London and the south-east was £250,000. At the same time, the Canal & River Trust’s latest annual report revealed that pay for its executive team has increased by £300,000 since the bins were removed. The CEO’s pay is now over £200,000 a year.
This is the reality. The Canal & River Trust is cutting vital public services while increasing pay for the top team. We must not forget that this is a taxpayer-funded body that receives over £15 million a year. Many people would be shocked by those numbers. What can the Canal & River Trust do? It can bring back our bins. It can start engaging properly with the many volunteers who take time out of their day to do what the trust is legally responsible for—tackling litter. It can also reassess its priorities, putting public services and not executive pay at the top of the list.
Noble Lords may be asking what this has to do with the Government. The Canal & River Trust is not an arm of government, but it does have statutory duties and Ministers should hold it to account for its actions. Can the Minister say what conversations they have had with the new CEO of the Canal & River Trust, Campbell Robb? Has the department raised with him the issue of litter on tow-paths, and what powers does it have to monitor the trust’s performance against any statutory duties? I invite the Minister to tackle this head-on in discussions with the trust to see what can be done to bring back the bins.
In closing, I quote Elena Horcajo who, before going to work, volunteers to pick up litter on our tow-paths to make canals cleaner. In Charlotte Ivers’s excellent article in the Sunday Times, Elena said:
“I’ve spoken to absolutely everybody to find a way to fix this issue … I see the Canal & River Trust doing absolutely nothing … Your whole job is to take care of the canal, so show that you care for the canal”.
We all, especially the Canal & River Trust, have a duty to care for our canals. I hope the Minister will help campaigners like Elena to get this issue resolved.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow on his steadfast support of this important issue and for obtaining this debate today. I first became aware of the growing concern about the amount of litter on canal tow-paths when my noble friend tabled his amendment to the Private Member’s Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, earlier this year. I agreed with him then, and I share his view that the removal of the litter bins by the Canal & River Trust is hugely regrettable.
We have over 2,000 miles of navigable canals in England and Wales, many of which have tow-paths that allow people to enjoy our beautiful countryside and admire our fascinating canal infrastructure heritage. In urban areas, the tow-path is an even more vital open space as an area where people can get a breath of fresh air in heavily built-up areas. The level of concern among the campaigners who are fighting for bins to be reinstated on canal tow-paths is testament to how much people value their local canal tow-paths.
My noble friend explained the problem clearly in his speech. It really is appalling that the Canal & River Trust is not listening to the concerned campaigners across the country who want the bins put back. I simply cannot understand why the trust is refusing to do the right thing and reverse its decision on this. The fact that campaigners have managed to get the media’s attention, as they have over the past year, shows that this a genuine problem.
My noble friend has spoken about our canals being an eyesore and that piles of litter will discourage people from using our tow-paths. I will focus on the impact that litter on canal tow-paths has on the environment and wildlife. Beside every tow-path is a canal or river, and they are home to a whole host of wildlife, including coots, moorhens, ducks, cormorants and others. All these are negatively affected by litter. When people leave their food waste and plastic rubbish on the tow-path, the wildlife on our canals is bound to be at risk. Whether it is from getting entangled in plastic packaging or consuming dangerous items, litter is a threat to wildlife. The excellent House of Lords Library briefing for this debate, citing the Canal & River Trust itself, confirmed that,
“Plastic and other waste can be ingested by or entangle wildlife and contribute to habitat degradation. Accumulated litter can also reduce water quality and impact bank and reedbed conditions”.
What I cannot understand is, if the Canal & River Trust is aware of the harm that litter and plastic waste does, why has it removed the bins that enable canal users to dispose of their litter responsibly? It makes no sense. Will the Minister please take that point to the Canal & River Trust at the next meeting between Defra and the trust?
In the trust’s annual report for the year ending 31 March 2025 its chair, David Orr, highlighted the contribution of the past chief executive, who stepped down in July. He said:
“Richard’s contribution to the Canal & River Trust becoming an established and admired national charity has been phenomenal”.
In reality, it seems to me that the new chief executive, Campbell Robb, has quite a task ahead of him to restore the trust’s reputation, so damaged is it by its obstinate refusal to reverse its misguided decision to scrap the bins.
The annual report acknowledges that:
“As the nation’s largest canal charity, we benefited from just under three-quarters of a million volunteer hours, with volunteers playing an essential role in repairing and maintaining canals and helping us across nearly all aspects of its work”.
The report proudly boasts:
“In December 2024 we submitted our first Climate Adaptation Report, putting us amongst the major infrastructure providers reporting to government about managing climate risk”.
It also informs the reader:
“We commissioned the Energy Saving Trust to help develop a plan to transition our 400 work vehicles to electric power. The first 25 electrically powered vehicles will be purchased in 2025/26 when we’ll also start installing charging points”.
Does the Minister know how much the trust’s electric vehicles transition plan is going to cost? What is the average age of the vehicles being replaced?
Surely, if the trust is so rich that it can afford to purchase 25 new electric vehicles just to show how good it is at managing climate risk, it must have enough money to continue to provide bins on tow-paths—otherwise it seems to me that its management has a warped sense of priorities. Besides, the trust’s accounts reveal that it derives 23% of its revenues—that is, £52.6 million—from its Defra grant, and a further quarter from its boat licensing fees, which increased by 7.3% to £55 million in the year just ended.
I think I speak for all noble Lords in this debate in saying that we want to see clean canals and clean tow-paths on their banks, with healthy wildlife. That should be a shared ambition. Can the Minister say what consideration the Government have given to this issue? Have they considered taking a more direct approach to the trust to resolve it? Now that the trust has a new chief executive, the Government have a fresh opportunity to put pressure on it to crack down on litter, as its supporters and the wider public all expect it must do. We cannot allow this to go on year after year, with litter piling up on our tow-paths, especially in the summer months. Can the Minister please commit to taking some proper action, so that we do not have to come back again next year to discuss the same problem?
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
My Lords, I shall not repeat at length the points so eloquently made by my noble friends Lord Evans and Lord Trenchard. I will, however, make one or two slightly different points.
As my noble friend Lord Trenchard has identified, litter by canals can have three principal impacts. The first are environmental—the plastic and other waste, as referred to by my noble friend. Secondly, there are the public health and safety risks that arise from the presence of waste, particularly biological waste, dog waste in particular, and those posed by debris building up in channels and drains, which can obstruct water flow and, in turn, damage canal infrastructure, which will probably cost a good deal to correct.
Thirdly, there are the further economic costs in relation to the disposal of litter, particularly litter that has got into the waterway itself. The Canal & River Trust estimates that the costs of dredging are £100 to £200 per cubic metre, depending on certain variables. It is undoubtedly true that the trust has removed a lot of bins, and it would probably say that it is not going to fit any new ones unless the local councils or others are going to pay to collect them. The trust would probably say that that is part of the funding squeeze it says it is experiencing. Avoiding new bins has been its practice for many years, although the policy of removing them is undoubtedly new. Trust staff rarely pick litter but, as has been observed, there is a ready body of willing volunteers who are vital to the administration of the canal network who help in many ways, including through picking litter, as has been identified by my noble friends.
I know that the Canal & River Trust is seeking to rationalise its estate and in particular to sell property that is not core to the waterways, to try to plug what it perceives to be a spending gap. The property that was transferred to the trust included a number of buildings that were some distance from the network. The obvious targets have already been sold, but there are still some more to be sold in relation to the canal network that may raise further money. It must be said that some of these properties are probably better cared for in private hands, because there is not money in the trust to maintain those properties.
So far, it is certainly the case that the trust has not sold any of the family silver of the canal network. However, the trust seems to have an effective investment team that is reinvesting the money for a return, and I suggest that funding should go towards the types of maintenance that we have heard about in the debate. It would certainly be a great shame if the trust felt it was necessary to mothball parts of the network in order to sustain those parts that run through urban areas.
Canals are a vital part of our national heritage and a much-loved outdoor recreational resource. Clean water, clean banks and clean tow-paths are a legitimate and reasonable expectation. Section 89 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 places a statutory duty on relevant bodies to keep the land they are responsible for clear of litter and refuse. For canals in England and Wales, that duty falls primarily on the Canal & River Trust, and the Government should ensure that it is complying with those statutory obligations.
The Minister may be suffering from déjà vu because he made that very point himself in a debate on 13 June in Committee on the Environmental Targets (Public Authorities) Bill, and he was reminded in that debate of the same point having been made by his fellow Minister, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at Defra, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who also drew attention to the statutory obligation in relation to the clearing of litter. Can the Minister update us on what has gone on since 13 June in relation to communicating with the trust on actioning its statutory obligations? I suspect that the trust may say that the bins are being cut to save money, but that does not excuse its statutory obligation. Clearly, it should take steps to address this issue and ensure that the litter that we see, particularly in urban areas, is dealt with as swiftly as possible.
Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court (CB)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly in the gap. First, I should mention that I, too, make regular use of canal tow-paths: I often walk along the Grand Union Canal, either through Camden and Islington or, mainly, from Boston Manor, through Osterley and down to the Thames in Brentford. My experience may be unusual, in the sense that I do not detect a huge amount of rubbish; certainly, in London, the trust seems to be doing rather a good job. I do worry about restoring bins. I think a lot of London boroughs have found that, the more bins you set out, the more people will put rubbish in and around them and thus create a real problem. I therefore have some sympathy for the trust in its endeavours.
Like others, though, I worry about funding. My recollection is that the last Labour Government had already decided to bring the British Waterways Board into co-operative ownership, and it was then the Conservative Government that introduced the trust. But—I speak as a former Treasury official—they did endow the trust with a reasonable amount of money, and it is still open to it to earn fees through effective management of marinas and so on. So, unusually for someone speaking in the House of Lords, I do not believe that throwing more money at the issue is the solution.
I do think that volunteers, as other noble Lords have mentioned, have a critical role to play. Is there anything the Government can do to encourage volunteering? Doing voluntary work around the canals is very rewarding; they are an amazing part of our country’s heritage. So, when the Minister replies, I hope to hear of his commitment to encourage volunteering in this space.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this is a debate where I think most people will have some input, because they have walked beside a waterway. We all know that, if you are going to walk beside a waterway as a leisure activity and then face piles of rubbish and, let us face it, dog excrement sitting in its lovely little plastic containers draped around the place, along with crisp packets and drink cans, that is not a pleasant experience. We have the Canal & River Trust, which is supposed to make us use the waterways, and, if they are not pleasant, you will not use them—so why is it there? Case closed.
However, is the primary duty to make sure these are navigable waterways or something we can access along the side? I hope the Minister will be able to clarify this. It seems to me that the only argument about this would be that we know we need it to keep the waterways open. Let us face it: bins are not as expensive as lock gates. They do not have the same implications for water management and flood prevention. You name it—there is a whole structure there that we have to manage properly and that the Canal & River Trust will have responsibility for, at least in part. So, to get the best out of this, we have to maintain the paths as something not only accessible but pleasant.
We then come to what the Government should do about this. They could try—I would not recommend it—to say, “Well, this just isn’t our job”. Well, it clearly is, or at least they have some influence there. What are we doing to make sure that access to this is maintained in a usable format for these purposes of recreation, so that it is safe and pleasant? Bins will be used and will occasionally overflow, and it will depend on the time of year you are out there, and on the structure and the access going around it—so there will be no “one size fits all”.
If the noble Lord has found a nice stretch of waterway, possibly we should all get the address. But I have been down once when it was a warm day, and a few people had sat down there, possibly with one of those barbecues or something—the bane of many people’s lives—and a few beer cans. “Is there a bin around here? Sod it, they can clear it up afterwards”. That happens. It will always happen. Any planning structure that does not take account of it is guaranteed to fail.
Can the Minister say what advice the Government are giving or what structure they are putting in place to try to counter this? If volunteers are needed, we know that people like volunteering for nice, big, positive tasks; an incredibly repetitious task tends to get less enthusiasm. What structure should there be for volunteers, and what will be their impact? Clearing a canal, taking out the water, is a big task. You can sit down and have a big celebration at the end. Emptying a bin every third day in the summer, when it is hot and you would rather not be there, is something that you can guarantee will not attract quite the same enthusiasm. What are we doing to make sure that this happens?
I shudder to say—many of my colleagues on my Benches would probably lynch me if I did—that local government should take charge, because it is a very stretched commodity at the moment. What is the interaction with local government to make sure that there is some support for activity taken by the Canal & River Trust? It is basically very simple: if you maintain these products, you will get something good out of it—something environmentally positive and a recreational facility. If you do not, you will have something that may become, if not totally clogged up with weeds with some water running through it, environmentally unpleasant and more difficult to maintain.
Can the Minister give us some idea of the conversations being had within government on how the various bits of government can make sure that this is addressed? If we have commercial activity beside the canal benefiting from it, what share of the heavy lifting on this mundane and irritating but persistent task are they required to do? What encouragement, and indeed use of the law, is there to make sure that they will do it? The is lots of law about collecting and not dumping litter, but it tends to be unenforced. Thus, it is ignored and the problem carries on. Do the Government have any strategies to make sure that this does not happen in the case of our canals and rivers?
I look forward to the Minister’s reply. I probably do not terribly envy this job, but the Government have a series of levers to make the various groups here take some action. It will be interesting to hear just how hard they are being pulled by the Government.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, this has been an important and enjoyable debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow on securing it. The fact that concerns have been raised in so many towns and cities across the country is demonstrative proof that there is a problem here that the Canal & River Trust must grasp. I pay tribute to my noble friend’s commitment in raising this issue. He has already tabled a significant number of Written Questions, raised this problem in Committee on the Private Member’s Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and asked Oral Questions. His tenacity is to be applauded. I also congratulate my noble friends who have spoken strongly on this issue, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on his contribution—he was also spot on in this debate. This is rather a frightening week for me. On Monday and Wednesday, on the crime Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and I found ourselves in complete agreement on a number of issues, which we both found rather scary—and perhaps likely to be expelled from our parties for being in complete agreement. I am, however, also in complete agreement with what the noble Lord said today.
The Conservative Party has consistently taken a firm view on litter. In government, we launched the litter strategy for England and increased the maximum on-the-spot fines from £80 to £150 in 2018. Even before that—I think way back in 1992—I was appointed to a joint ministerial working group on litter. I do not think we achieved very much, as every Minister from every different department said, “It’s nothing to do with me; it’s their job to sort out the litter”. Nevertheless, we tried to tackle it way back in 1992.
Littering is, first and foremost, an issue of personal responsibility. It is utterly unacceptable that people feel that it is for someone else to clear up after them. Anyone who litters creates a problem that someone else has to come along and fix. It is a breach of the social contract. That is why we have tough laws, and we need punitive fines for this selfish and anti-social behaviour. That said, we all know that public bins are useful and essential. They provide ordinary people with the opportunity to do the right thing and dispose of their litter responsibly.
That is where I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court. It is rather naive for organisations to say, “If we put out bins, people will use them. They will fill them up and they might overflow”. The whole point of having litter bins is that they will be used. There is a naive belief that if we do not have bins, people will take their litter home. People will say, “Oh my God, there’s no bin, I must take it all home with me”. That simply does not happen. In most cases, they will leave it behind. I am not sure whether it was the highways department or county councils—certainly in my own patch in Cumbria—that removed litter bins from laybys on A roads in the naive belief that, if we have no litter bins, lorry drivers and others will not dump their rubbish. That is absolute nonsense; laybys are stuffed full of litter.
I am a board member of a community interest company, CleanStreets, and we work hand in glove with Keep Britain Tidy, tackling cigarette litter on pavements. Over the past three years, we have had some considerable success, getting litter down by 18%. We spend a lot on research, and that shows that, in an area where there are smokers and no bins, the pavements are covered in cigarette litter. Believe it or not, if you provide bins, most cigarette users will use them. We also discovered that people do not like those posh bins, where you stub out your cigarette then poke it through the hole, because they feel that their hands will get dirty. They love a bucket full of sand where they chuck the litter. The point I am making is that if you provide bins, people generally will use them. If you do not provide bins, you will get excess litter.
On our pavements, we pay for the public service of having litter bins, but our tow-paths are different. They are a different story, but the principle remains the same. As my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow told us, the Canal & River Trust receives more than £50 million of taxpayers’ money every year, so the public do pay for the services they receive from the trust. Does the Minister agree that taxpayers should not have those services cut, given that they are paying for them? I agree with my noble friend that many will be shocked to hear that executive pay at the Canal & River Trust is at hundreds of thousands of pounds since the bins were removed. That feels like a misalignment of priorities. Will the Minister tell the Committee his view of that statistic?
I read in a recent article in the Sunday Times that the Canal & River Trust spent £6.7 million on fundraising costs, while raising just £6.7 million in donations. It is probably the only charitable organisation with a net-zero fundraising policy. Have Ministers looked into the financial management of the Canal & River Trust?
As part of our Litter Strategy for England, we established the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, of which the Canal & River Trust is a member. Can the Minister please confirm when the group last met and what discussions Ministers in his department have had with the Canal & River Trust in connection with its membership of the group? Does he agree that it is incongruous that an organisation that is a member of the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group has removed all the litter bins on their tow-paths? For complete transparency, I need to admit that, speaking three days ago on the Crime and Policing Bill, I condemned the terminology “fly-tipping” as too nice a term that diminishes the evil of what is currently happening with massive fly-tipping around the country.
Some of the facts we have heard over the course of this debate, from noble friends and the noble Lords, Lord Macpherson and Lord Addington, have highlighted the seriousness of the problem and the fact that the Canal & River Trust does not appear to be taking the action needed to fulfil its existing statutory duties. Again, I ask the Minister whether he feels that Ministers have sufficient powers to hold the Canal & River Trust to account for its actions. What steps can Ministers take to encourage or require the Canal & River Trust to restore bin provision on urban canal footpaths? If the Minister does not feel that Ministers have the powers necessary to ensure that bins are restored to canal tow-paths, can he commit to reviewing the status of the Canal & River Trust itself so that publicly elected officials can have some control over how the money is spent?
Outdoor space is a much-prized commodity in our ever-growing cities. We need outdoor spaces to be cared for properly so that everyone can enjoy them and rely on them, not least as excellent places to exercise and keep fit. I hope the Minister will listen carefully to everything my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow has said and all the other comments from my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the necessity of restoring these bins and keeping our tow-paths in clean and pristine condition.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to respond to this Question for Short Debate. I am grateful to all who spoke, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, and I join the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in paying tribute to his tenacity in pursuing this subject. As the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, noted, we all took part in the debate on the Private Member’s Bill on environmental targets. His passion for keeping the canal tow-paths as clean and litter-free as possible was clear then, and I am glad to see that it is as strong now as it was in June. It feels much longer ago than that.
Litter is, unfortunately, a perennial problem across our country. As we have heard clearly today, it has an adverse impact on people’s everyday lives. It spoils our urban space, our rural spaces and the beauty of our countryside, as well as bringing serious risks to our wildlife and, indeed, to public health. Although it is an ongoing problem, the Government are not standing still when it comes to addressing the root causes of litter. As I was saying in the previous debate, we are committed to reducing waste by transitioning towards a circular economy. We have convened a Circular Economy Taskforce of experts to help develop an action plan for England. To combat behaviours driving litter, we will be bringing forward statutory enforcement guidance on both littering and fly-tipping. Or, rather, I join the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in calling it—I have forgotten what he said—
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I have forgotten what terms I used on Monday or Wednesday this week. I did not call it fly-tipping. I honestly cannot remember; I could not find it when I was searching for it. It was “criminal waste disposal”, or something like that.
Lord Katz (Lab)
I am happy to join him in that sort of terminology or to call it environmental vandalism, which is a phrase I certainly used when responding to the noble Lord in that debate in the Chamber.
We are modernising the code of practice on litter and refuse in England, and refreshing best practice guidance on the powers available to local authorities, to force landowners and building owners to clear up their premises. That address in part the point from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about involving local authorities.
The noble Lord, Lord Evans, has focused on the problem of litter on canal tow-paths, particularly those belonging to the Canal & River Trust. He gave examples of complaints, particularly from parts of London where littering has increased noticeably since the trust removed bins from its tow-paths in 2023. I am pleased that he cited my own local paper, the inestimable Camden New Journal. Like the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, I walk stretches of Regent’s Canal in and around Camden. While I am not trying to evade the point of the debate that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has brought, I also find that some stretches are no worse than they used to be in terms of litter, and some stretches under the Westway, around the Paddington area, have always been bestrewn with lots of fly-tipping. It is a problem. I observe hotspots, anecdotally, but I will say no more about that.
I challenge the argument that reducing government funding for the trust is to blame for the removal of litter bins. As the noble Lord, Lord Evans, said, the Canal & River Trust is publicly funded, but it is not only publicly funded. The current annual grant provided to the trust—£52.6 million—constituted 22.6% of the trust’s total annual income of £232.6 million last year. The grant is but a contribution towards the trust’s total waterway maintenance costs of around £100 million a year. We have some agency, but not exclusive agency. I will come on to talk about this in a bit, but we are not the only funder of the organisation.
However, as we were saying, the trust is an independent charity, and the Government do not direct its management or operational decisions. Similarly, the annual grant does not stipulate how much is spent on any activity eligible for the funding, including litter management. That is a decision for the trust to make based on operational need at any point.
Having said that, there is close contact between Defra and the Canal & River Trust at all levels. To respond to the noble Lords, Lord Evans and Lord Blencathra, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, Defra officials meet the trust’s senior management formally three times a year to discuss issues around the use of the grant funding; that may well include litter management arrangements, as appropriate. There is regular contact between the CRT’s chief executive and senior Defra officials. I can also confirm that Minister Hardy is due to meet Campbell Robb, the new chief executive; I do not think that a date has been set for that meeting yet, but it is certainly in train. Moreover, I can commit here that Defra officials plan to raise the issue of litter management with the CRT at their next meeting; indeed, it has commissioned a paper from the CRT on the issue.
It is fair to point out that the trust’s decision to remove litter bins from tow-paths was not taken in a vacuum. In fact, I can tell noble Lords that the trust carried out an assessment of the likely impact of this move prior to making the decision; the results indicated that it would be broadly neutral. A key consideration was that, where the bins are in place—I cite the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, and agree with what he said—they attracted the dumping of litter or fly-tipping around them. The trust noted that, before removal, the cost of servicing the tow-path bins was some £400,000 a year. Since their removal, the cost of dealing with litter on tow-paths has more than halved; the resulting savings are being reinvested in the upkeep of the network infrastructure.
The trust is very aware of its statutory duty, under Section 89 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, to keep the land for which it is responsible clear of litter and refuse. It is for the trust to work out how best to comply with that, taking account of the standards in the statutory code of practice on litter and refuse. The annual grant provided by the Government to the CRT is a contribution to support its network and infrastructure management, including via a range of eligible activities that are enumerated in the grant agreement; litter management is included in that list of activities. However, the grant agreement does not specify how funding should be allocated. I stress that that is a decision for the trust to make, based on operational need at any given point.
I contend that it is evident that the trust continues to take littering seriously, with its staff and volunteer teams—I assure the noble Lord, Lord Murray, it is both staff and volunteers—regularly engaging in clean-ups. The trust has some 5,500 volunteers across the country who carry out a range of activities, with 2,800 of them in waterside and conservation tasks that include litter picking. In respect of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on the impact of volunteers and volunteering activity in the CRT, it is worth noting that those numbers have increased by some 20% in 2024-25, as compared to 2023-24: the figure for 2023-24 was 4,566 but, in 2024-25, it is 5,473. It is an active target for the CRT to increase the number of volunteers and the range of volunteer activity in which it engages; that is part of its work as a charitable organisation.
These activities are carried out in work parties on a weekly or monthly basis. They are, as I have said, very much in line with the trust’s charitable objectives and its original policy intent: creating greater community involvement in the running and care of local canals, as part of the transfer from the old British Waterways Board to the CRT more than a decade ago. Last year, 300 trust volunteers gave more than 34,000 hours of their time in London. A litter sweep of the nine-mile Regent’s Canal takes place at least once a week; I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, that that may explain why, in our experience, it is in a good state. This is a full day’s work for four operatives and generally fills a workboat to capacity with seven-tonne bags of litter and larger items. The trust’s contractor also undertakes around 60 fly-tipping clearance tasks each month in this area alone.
The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and others have discussed the status of the funding of the CRT. It was taken out of public ownership by the former Prime Minister David Cameron as part of the big society experiment, and I want to stress that the Government’s funding is but a part of its total income. It is on a journey to self-sufficiency. We are limited in our time, so we cannot go into the detail of that decision, but we have to accept that that means the CRT receives money from a range of sources, so it is not simply for the Government to tell it what to do. I say to the noble Lord that government cannot take more powers without taking more control, and I am not entirely sure that that is what this Government want. I would certainly be surprised if the Benches opposite were calling for nationalisation of the CRT, but perhaps we can all be surprised.
The trust has increased its fundraising income by nearly 20% over the last two years. It generates annual income through its boat licence fees and mooring charges of around £55 million; commercial arrangements with utility and water companies generate around £45 million, and returns on its investments and property holdings amount to around £52 million.
We are running out of time, so I will conclude. Fully addressing littering and dumping rubbish involves changing people’s behaviours. Improving awareness of the impacts and consequences of littering through educating and encouraging behavioural change is something that we can all play a part in, along with local authorities and, in this case, the trust. I hope that I have provided assurances that the CRT continues to take seriously its responsibilities for tackling littering on its tow-paths, notwithstanding the removal of litter bins. The Government are also taking forward a number of initiatives to strengthen nationwide action on littering so that we can all better enjoy our surroundings, be they in the city, in the countryside or on canal tow-paths.