It is very important that my hon. Friend has been able to put his interest in this subject matter on the record.
Amendment 17 relates to clause 9, which addresses stranded, grounded and sunken vessels and vehicles. The amendment would remove the subsection 3, which states:
“Whenever any vessel is, without lawful authority, left or moored in any waterway the Commissioners may after serving not less than 28 days’ notice on the owner of the vessel, unless it is not practicable after reasonable inquiry to ascertain the name and address of the owner, raise and remove the vessel.”
As set out in the rest of clause 9, it is perfectly reasonable for a vessel that is stranded or abandoned in a waterway and is interfering with navigation to be removed quickly. However, when one takes into account the very wide definition of “waterway”, the inclusion of subsection 3 is potentially oppressive. It could mean that the commissioners could, for example, go into a marina and raise and remove a vessel at considerable cost after no more than 28 days’ notice. The amendment would therefore remove that power from the Bill.
Clause 11 relates to the requirements for registration and incorporates a very important amendment promoted by the March Cruising Club and others on the charges and the amount by which they could be increased in any one year. It introduces a requirement that such charges should not increase above the rate of inflation as defined by the consumer prices index. Many boaters—some may be represented by my hon. Friends here this evening—are not very well-off in financial terms and need to be able to plan their budgets ahead. When they work out the costs of having a vessel on the waterway, they need to have the certainty that the charges levied cannot be increased by more than the rate of the CPI each year. By analogy, the Government have said that council tax should not increase by more than the CPI. They have made some exceptions to that recently, but the general proposition is that they cannot be increased by more than the CPI.