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Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 750612 relating to placing a requirement on drivers to report collisions with cats.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers—I suspect they might need to change the nameplate. The petition was started by CatsMatter, a group co-funded by Mandy Hobbis and Tiya Ivy, who are here today. I am standing in today for my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), who had the privilege of meeting Mandy ahead of today’s debate and learned that both of them had lost cats on the roads. Anyone who has waited up for a pet that never came home will understand why the campaign has kept going since 2017.
I should declare an interest. I have always lived with cats and have lost several to being run over. Just a few weeks ago, a family member lost their cat, Comet, who was hit by a car in a residential cul-de-sac and just left there. As with every loss of a cat, they were devastated. My daughter Emily has a beautiful white fluffy cat that rules the Wrigley household. He is called Ignatius D Flufflesworth—not that he comes when called by that name, of course. He was, however, very fond of joining in with my Zoom calls during the pandemic and pretending he was in a James Bond movie. I know how much he means to her, and the idea of losing him to a car accident without knowing what happened does not bear thinking about.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
For many, particularly older, people—I know this from Cornwall and our remote coastal towns and villages—a cat is not simply a pet; it is a much loved companion and important source of comfort. Does the hon. Member agree with me and the 419 constituents of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle who signed the petition that the Government need to consider further steps to ensure that when cats are involved in collisions, they are treated in the same way as pet dogs?
Martin Wrigley
I agree. Cats are not just companions; they are members of the family, so, yes, collisions should be reported. Clearly, we are not alone. By the time the petition closed on 17 June, it had gathered 189,192 signatures, many of which were in my own Newton Abbot constituency.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
One of the petitioners is my constituent Hayley, whose cat sadly was killed by a vehicle overnight—probably not an untypical story. The cat was found on the pavement the next morning, apparently moved there by the driver. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that moving to a point where cats are treated in the same way as dogs would at least give some comfort to cat owners who are left grieving and without an explanation about what happened in those final moments?
Martin Wrigley
Yes, absolutely. It is the not knowing that is really awful. I will come on to that.
I am told that this is the largest cat welfare petition that has ever come to Parliament. That is a great many people and they deserve to have their concerns properly heard today. So where does the law stand?
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
A similar campaign before 2015 provoked a similar debate in this place. I was the Minister responsible at the time, speaking from the Dispatch Box. I can tell the hon. Member—it might come as a surprise to him— that at that time I changed the guidance so that cats killed on roads must be collected, identified with their owners and notified to the Highways Agency. One of three things has occurred: the guidance has been ignored; the Department for Transport did not bring about what I announced from the Dispatch Box, which seems unlikely; or the guidance applied only to roads controlled by the then Highways Agency, which of course excludes the local roads, which are within the purview of local authorities. That guidance is on record and can be used as the basis for dealing with this excellent petition. I speak as a proud cat owner then and as a beloved cat owner now. And, by the way, they are not just companions; they are members of my family—Caterina and Gordon.
Martin Wrigley
From my experience, I suspect that the right hon. Member’s third option is probably correct.
On people’s confusion about where to report a collision with a cat, section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 says that a driver who hits certain animals must stop and, if necessary, report it to the police. Those animals are horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats and dogs. Cats are not on the list.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I am intervening on behalf of my good friend Sandra, otherwise known as the crazy cat lady of Canford Heath. She is concerned, as I am, that the assumption is that the reason cats are not included is that they are not working animals. I can tell Members that my beloved dogs, Todd and Reggie, are absolutely not working animals—far from it—yet they would be covered. On the question of whether legislation is needed, we had a fantastic animal welfare strategy issued earlier this year, so is now not the moment to bring this issue into a new animal welfare Act?
Martin Wrigley
I tend to agree, and we will come to working animals shortly.
Cats are not on the list. Neither, I might add, are llamas or alpacas, which gives a fair idea of how old the list is. It has come down to us, almost untouched, from the Road Traffic Act 1930. The usual explanation—my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) must have read my speech in advance—is that these are working animals with an economic value to their owners, whereas cats were seen as pets. Rule 286 of the highway code does advise drivers to report any collision with an animal and, where possible, to find the owner of a cat. However, that is only guidance, and a driver who hits a cat can carry on driving without breaking any law.
Chris Kane (Stirling and Strathallan) (Lab)
In attempting to find the owner, microchipping is incredibly important. Compulsory microchipping of cats is already in place in England but remains voluntary in Scotland. Does the hon. Member agree that Scotland should catch up so that more families can be reunited with a missing cat, or at the very least be spared the uncertainty of never knowing what happened to a much-loved pet?
Martin Wrigley
Yes, I agree—it should.
In their response to the petition, the Government noted they have “no current plans” to change the law due to the fact that cats are small and often out at dawn and dusk, so a driver may genuinely not know that they have hit one. They argued that, alongside research into how councils identify cats found on the road, compulsory microchipping offers a better way forward.
Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a simple act of responsibility, requiring drivers to report collisions, could prevent suffering of injured animals, as well as give families and owners closure over what has happened to their much-loved family pets?
Martin Wrigley
Yes, that is a very good way forward.
The campaigners have answered the Government’s points with some care. On the working animals argument, CatsMatter has done its own sums. Using a University of Bristol study and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs farm figures, it reckons that there could be around 60,000 working farm cats in England, against roughly 65,000 working sheepdogs. It is open that those are estimates, but I represent a great many farms, and I can tell Members that farm cats in Devon work as hard as farm dogs and earn their keep.
The campaigners also make a broader point, and I have some sympathy with it: many people now think of their cats as one of the family—Ignatius is certainly part of ours. When they see that dogs are covered and cats are not, they feel that the law simply does not value their animal in the same way.
Other countries have updated their laws to include cats, including Italy and Hong Kong. CatsMatter argues that even if a new duty of stopping for cats was rarely enforced, it would tell drivers what decent behaviour on the road looks like. The question is whether the reasons for leaving cats out of section 170 still hold up in 2026.
Cats Protection, the UK’s leading cat welfare charity, wants exactly the same outcome as the petitioners. Nobody wants an injured cat to be left to suffer, or an owner to be left forever wondering. However, the charity has real concerns about using this particular piece of law.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
I thank the 335 people in my constituency of Harrogate and Knaresborough who signed this petition. My hon. Friend mentioned earlier that the Government seemingly have no plans at this point to change things, and there is the conversation around whether the Road Traffic Act 1988 is the mechanism to achieve change. Does he agree that the message that we can send today from this House is that, even if it is not legally required, the right, moral thing to do is for people to notify the police and to try to find the owner? That is a message that we can all send from here today.
Martin Wrigley
I agree with my hon. Friend that that is the right, moral thing to do and we need to encourage drivers to do it.
The animals in section 170 are ones whose owners are expected to keep them under control or fenced in, and the law has long accepted that cats roam. Cats Protection worries that bringing cats into a framework created for dogs and livestock could open up questions about an owner’s liability if a roaming cat causes an accident. It might also nudge people towards keeping their cats indoors—speaking as Ignatius’s feeder and door-opener, I am not sure he would take kindly to that.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals supports the aim of the petition and says it would not stand in the way of a change in the law. Its concern is a practical one. A duty to report to the police would not in itself get an injured cat to a vet, or ensure that that a dead one is scanned for a chip. Police forces are stretched, and ringing 101 will not bring help to the roadside.
The sense of unfairness that the petitioners feel is real, and I understand it. It has been fascinating to open the debate on this petition, because the fact of the matter is that everyone involved—on both sides of the petition—is united around one thing: they all care deeply about cats; they just disagree about whether changing section 170 is the right answer. What they also agree on is what should happen if a cat is hit. If the cat is alive, it needs to see a vet as quickly as possible. Alive or dead, it should be scanned for a microchip, so that its owner can be found and told.
That brings me on to what drivers actually face. Picture someone on a dark road who has just hit a cat. They are shaken and they do not know whether to ring the police, the council, a vet, a charity or highways, because responsibility is split across all of them. I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government will do to give that driver a clear answer. That may or may not mean amending the Road Traffic Act 1988. Whatever the mechanism, cats should not be left to suffer at the roadside, and their owners should not spend years wondering what happened to them.
I thank Mandy and Tiya and everyone at CatsMatter for their work, and I look forward to hearing from colleagues and the Minister’s reply.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair this evening, Mr Vickers, and I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for introducing this e-petition debate. My family love cats, none more so than Tishy, who was our tabby cat and lived with us until the ripe old age of 20. Some years have passed, but we still miss her very much.
I thank the Cats Whiskers, a charity based in Clackmannanshire that does so much for the welfare of cats and kittens across my constituency. It has just celebrated its eighth anniversary. The fantastic work it does includes running a trap, neuter and return programme; providing temporary fostering; helping pet-owners with food, litter and practical support; rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming abandoned, neglected and vulnerable cats; and supporting Police Scotland, local authorities, vets and other charities in animal welfare cases.
I share the frustration and dismay of the people from the Cats Whiskers at the fact that cats are not included in section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. We think it is abominable that if a cat is hit by a vehicle, the driver can just drive away and leave the animal behind injured and in pain or lying dead on the road, and that that is considered acceptable by the law. It is surely a question of basic compassion and decency to change this law.
I would not dare to speak for any other right hon. or hon. Member, but I imagine that whatever one’s worldview and politics may be, one decides to run as a candidate to come to this place to positively change the country, if not the world. I appreciate that there may be limitations, barriers or impediments to achieving that level of change as a parliamentarian, but surely making this law fairer for the benefit of people who have a cat as a beloved member of their family and changing it so that drivers must stop and report if they have hit a cat can gain universal, cross-Bench approval. The change is most certainly achievable.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Gentleman always makes such a valuable contribution to our considerations, as I told him just the other day. The guidance that I announced in this Chamber must exist. That could be made statutory, and a mechanism could be found to apply it beyond the trunk roads, as I mentioned earlier. Surely the Minister would have a fairly straightforward job—this would not require primary legislation. He may be able to do it at a stroke, following this debate.
Brian Leishman
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words at the start. I appreciate them; sometimes I would like it if some of my own parliamentary colleagues thought the same as he does, but that is a different matter. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman: this is achievable and it should be done.
Chris Kane
As my hon. Friend’s parliamentary colleague, I agree with everything that was said. The Government’s concern that a driver may not always know that they have struck a cat is a reason why the issue might be problematic. However, does my hon. Friend agree that there is a clear distinction between an unnoticed collision and knowingly driving away from an injured animal? Why should difficulty in preventing the first stop us from placing a duty of drivers to stop safely and seek help in the second?
Brian Leishman
I thank my hon. Friend, and I understand that there is a differentiation.
This debate is well-subscribed and I do not want to take up too much more time. I will finish with a request from the good people at the Cats Whiskers that they have asked to be put to the Minister:
“We want the Government to legislate to require drivers to stop, check and report any road collisions with cats if they’re injured on the road, and hold drivers accountable if they fail to stop and report a collision involving a cat on the basis they left a cat to unnecessarily suffer. We believe asking drivers to be made responsible for seeking help for an injured cat is a perfectly reasonable & simple ask.”
As their MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, I wholeheartedly agree.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank the Petitions Committee and the 189,192 people who signed the petition, especially on behalf of my two lovely cats, Levi and Lola. They are especially indebted because their mum does not let them out—they want to, but it is not safe enough.
The list of animals in section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 was not drawn up in that year; it was lifted almost word for word from the Road Traffic Act 1930. As the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) said, that is probably why cats, llamas and alpacas are not mentioned in it. We are told that the list covers working animals, although perhaps not those owned by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade). Dogs were included in 1930, even though most were already companions at that stage, because no driver could tell a sheepdog from a family pet. Today, a driver must report hitting a terrier or a puppy no bigger than a kitten but not a cat of exactly the same size. On working status, CatsMatter estimates that there are around 60,000 working farm cats in England, against roughly 65,000 working sheepdogs, so that distinction does not survive scrutiny any more.
Cats are not livestock or vermin—for millions of households, they are family. The cruellest part of losing a cat on the road is often not knowing and that phone call never coming. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has said plainly that reporting and scanning give owners the closure that they deserve, and I agree.
In ancient Egypt, where cats were given sacred status, Diodorus Siculus reported that killing one cat, even by accident, would cost someone their life. I want to be clear that that is not what CatsMatter or any other organisation is asking for, because this is not about punishing motorists. I am certain that most drivers who hit a cat are shocked and upset. They want to do the right thing, but the problem is that they do not know what to do. They will be standing on the side of the road, searching their phone and wondering who to call, while the cat passes away. Is it the police or the council? We must have a clear pathway.
The Government argue that drivers may not know that they have hit a cat, but the court settled in Harding v. Price that the duty applies only when a driver knows or ought reasonably to have known. A Hungarian study has found that drivers were uncertain in only 2.3% of pet collisions. A duty to stop and report, paired with one clear, well publicised route to help, would give decent drivers the confidence to act. There is no need for that to be expensive. Parliament routinely passes short enabling clauses. A single amendment to a suitable Government Bill could give the Secretary of State power to add cats—and alpacas and llamas—to the list. Better co-ordination can be built with the 69 animal welfare organisations that have backed this change, with the veterinary profession and with commercial partners, at the least cost to the public purse.
Finally, the Government have made microchipping compulsory. That was the right thing to do, but a chip helps only if someone scans it. Reporting completes the system that the Government have already built and gives every owner one more reason to chip their cat and keep their details up to date. Hong Kong, Switzerland, Gibraltar and Jersey already require that. The UK is becoming an outlier. Around three quarters of cats survive the initial impact, so we could save many more. Will the Government commit to bringing forward an enabling power and to working with the sector on a single route to help? The assumptions of 1930 deserve re-examination in 2026. Nearly 190,000 people have asked us to look again. I hope the Minister will.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I declare my interest as a loyal servant to Penny and Hugo. I pay tribute to the CatsMatter team for creating this petition, the largest ever cat-related petition to come to Parliament, and to my constituent Mandy Hobbis, who co-founded the charity. I have supported them and this campaign since becoming an MP, and have twice joined them to hand in petitions at No. 10, so it is fantastic to finally debate this issue.
This is not simply about road traffic law; it is about whether the law reflects the place that cats hold in our society. As I said in a Westminster Hall debate earlier this year on the animal welfare strategy, there are significant inconsistencies in the protections given to cats and dogs under the law. Cats are cherished members in millions of households, yet under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 a driver who collides with a dog must report the incident, while the driver who collides with a cat does not have to. The origins of that legislation are almost 100 years old. Society, animal ownership and our understanding of animal welfare have changed enormously since then, so the question before Parliament is not why cats were excluded in the past, but whether their continued exclusion can be justified today.
As campaigners point out, compulsory microchipping has strengthened the case for reform, but a microchip alone cannot save a cat’s life. Importantly, the UK is increasingly becoming an outlier internationally. Jurisdictions including Hong Kong, Switzerland, Gibraltar and Jersey already require drivers to report collisions involving cats, demonstrating that such measures are practical and enforceable, and that it is neither radical nor unworkable. For many families, the most distressing outcome is not knowing what has happened to a beloved pet. The RSPCA has highlighted the heartbreak faced by owners who never discover what happens to their cat, while CatsMatter has emphasised the importance of prompt action and clearer routes to assistance for injured animals.
I recognise that organisations such as Cats Protection have raised concerns about unintended consequences if cats were simply inserted into the existing framework. Those concerns deserve careful consideration, but they should not be a reason for inaction. Instead, the Government should work with animal welfare organisations and develop a proportionate solution that improves reporting and owner notification, while preserving cats’ right to roam.
I would like to put several questions to the Minister. Does he accept that the current distinction between cats and dogs is increasingly difficult to justify, given the place cats occupy in millions of British households? What assessment has he made of the reporting requirements for cats in jurisdictions such as Switzerland, Gibraltar, Jersey and Hong Kong? Can any lessons can be learned in England and the UK more widely?
Will the Government review whether the current arrangements for microchipping are sufficient to ensure that injured or deceased cats are identified and their owners informed? If the Government do not support bringing cats into the scope of section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, what alternative measures will they consider to improve reporting?
Finally, will the Minister commit to meeting the campaigners, more welfare organisations and interested MPs to discuss possible legislative or even non-legislative solutions to this issue? The priority is preventing cats from being left to suffer unnecessarily on our roads. I urge the Government to engage constructively and set out a clear pathway for addressing this anomaly in the law.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
I hope you received my note, Mr Vickers, indicating that I could not be here at the start. I offer my apologies to the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley), who moved the motion, and all other colleagues. I meant no disrespect; I was chairing a Committee upstairs.
Street Farm House is on a corner opposite the village shop in a quiet, rural village. During rush hour, there is a fairly high volume of traffic. There is a 30-mile-an-hour speed limit that is hardly ever adhered to during the rush-hour. The illustrious cabinet member for highways and transport, Peter Osborne, a Reform county councillor, has chosen not to take any action to introduce traffic-calming measures, despite the fact that we have warned over and over again that it is only a question of time before a child or an elderly person—I can speak with some authority on that matter—will be killed crossing that bottleneck.
On a light, bright morning six weeks ago, Baxter, aged two-and-a-half, chose to cross the road. It was totally out of character because, so far as we are all aware, he had never done it before. He was hit by a car travelling, at a guesstimate, well in excess of 50 miles an hour. The driver did not stop. Five other drivers did not stop. Unfortunately, the village shop CCTV did not pick up the number plate.
Afterwards, one decent human being took the trouble to pull in, look after the dying cat and make sure that the owners—not me—were aware that their desperately loved family pet had been killed on the road. I have always had some strong feelings about this issue, but this incident has inevitably sharpened my attention.
I understand entirely the concerns raised by Cats Protection and others about liability. That liability applies to dogs: when a dog is out of control and causes an accident, the owner may be liable for whatever damage is caused up to and including death in that accident. Those of us who love cats and dogs must accept that it is much harder to keep a cat under control than a dog— the expression “herding kittens” is probably appropriate.
Nevertheless, cats are now microchipped. The point has been made, fairly, that the person who hits and kills or maims the animal is likely to be traumatised. Patently, that was not the case for the driver who hit the cat that I referred to. They clearly could not have given a toss; they drove straight on with gay abandon.
If it is difficult for people to grasp to whom they should report something after stopping, then I respectfully suggest that it is no harder than to know to whom to report hitting a dog, so I do not think that is a valid argument. I believe very strongly that to leave any animal, but particularly a family pet, dying in the road and go on without a care in the world is simply not acceptable. It is not decent behaviour. It is not what the British do, with their affection for animals.
I would entirely support an amendment to the Road Traffic Act or, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) suggested, taking guidance and turning it into something statutory. I do not accept the argument that it cannot be done. It can be done; we have to find a way of doing it. I want to see Baxter’s law—or something similar—on a statute book as soon as possible.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for the way in which he introduced the debate. Like other Members, I must declare an interest: I am the proud owner of a cat called Millie. She is over three years old now, but she is still a baby to me. I got her from the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Balerno in my constituency before I was elected. She came to me both chipped and neutered.
When I first got Millie, my friend Denise said that I should not have got a cat because it would just climb up my curtains. Millie did do that when she was a kitten and it was incredibly cute. My wife, Mrs Arthur, was less sure about the situation. She picked Millie’s name because she promised that the cat would become a millstone around our necks. The other piece of advice we got was that one day we would let the cat out and it would not return. That is the focus of this debate: so many cats are let out and do not return because they are hit by a car, crawl off under a hedge or a bush and are never found.
To millions of households across the UK, cats are deeply loved family members and constant companions. Yet, under current law, if a driver hits a cat they can simply drive away—I know that not all do. That is not the case for collisions with dogs, which must be reported; I and many other cat owners throughout the country believe that that is an outdated distinction that no longer reflects the way we live. Each year in the UK an estimated 230,000 cats are hit by cars. I find that number absolutely incredible; I had to triple-check it. It works out at roughly one cat—and one family who have lost that cat—in every constituency in the UK every day.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
On the point about families losing cats, a constituent of mine lost her cat shortly before Christmas 2024 after he was run over and killed on Alkerden Lane. The cat was a huge part of her life and she felt very lost without him. Despite an eyewitness urging the car driver to stop they did not. My constituent cannot understand why the driver was under no obligation to do so; I urge Ministers to address that. Does my hon. Friend agree that in such a situation it is simply right and proper for the driver to stop regardless of whether the law obliges them to do so?
Dr Arthur
Absolutely. A few years ago, we looked after my daughter’s cat for a short period—three years, it turned out. It was a fantastic cat, and its pastime was chasing foxes, but one day it was in the garden and then darted across the road, almost getting run over, so I get that it is not always—or even seldom—the driver’s fault. I like to think that if it happened to me, I would stop and perhaps explain what had happened.
Lost cat signs have become common on lamp posts right across the UK. They are almost so common that we hardly see them at all now. Only last month, a constituent contacted my office, deeply distressed after a driver tragically killed her two-year-old kitten. She was left searching for answers and completely bewildered as to why the police could not intervene or help clarify what had happened. This is not about criminalising drivers; it is about compassion and accountability. Leaving an injured cat on the roadside deprives it of potentially lifesaving veterinary care and leaves owners in agonising uncertainty.
I am very proud to have a People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals hospital in my constituency. I visited it a few months ago. Two cats I saw had had had operations after they had suffered some kind of trauma, and the assumption was that that was being hit by a car. That is just two cats on one day in that one hospital. I thank the PDSA for its fantastic work to support people on low incomes being able to access excellent veterinary treatment.
Updating the legislation would not place an inordinate burden on drivers or the police. With microchipping now compulsory in England—and needed in Scotland, as we heard earlier—identifying the owner and offering closure is easier and faster than ever before. The petition shows a very real public mandate for a change that people demand. At the same time, I recognise that some voices in the animal welfare sector are concerned that amending the Road Traffic Act to include cats might have the unintended consequences of imposing criminal and civil liability on owners of cats involved in collisions. Of course, it is the job of this place to consider unintended consequences and to ensure that they are absolutely minimised or, we hope, do not happen at all. I urge the Government to explore how to update the Act in a manner that will protect owners while giving the same basic duty of care to cats that we extend to dogs. We heard that Gibraltar and Jersey already have some such provisions. They are places with close connections to the UK and I am sure we can learn lots from how they approached the problem.
Finally, as a Scottish MP, I have to acknowledge that this is a devolved matter; I appreciate that in Scotland it falls under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. I very much hope for progress at a UK level, but we can also speak to colleagues in Scotland, perhaps at the same time talking about mandating chipping in Scotland and—something else I am passionate about—heavily regulating people who choose to breed cats at home for a profit, which involves at least a lot of distress for the cats. That needs to be addressed north and south of the border.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
I thank my constituents who signed the petition or who wrote to me about the issue. It goes without saying that we are a country of animal lovers, and that while no law requires drivers to report a cat’s death on our roads, they should look to find a way to inform the owners if they are responsible for a collision. At least, that is what the Government told me when I asked them about the issue more than a year ago. That missed the point, however; unfortunately, just because they should, does not mean that everyone will.
Whether cats or dogs, pets are loved members of the family for many in our communities. I am a pet owner myself, and there is no worse feeling than not knowing where one’s pet is and whether they are okay. I have an AirTag on my pet, just to make sure I can keep a closer eye.
Susie from Chard put it best when she recently spoke out after losing her cat Tigs to a car collision last year:
“It just cannot be right that in 2026 the law allows cats to be hit by cars and left alone, scared and in pain on the roadside”.
She is absolutely right. She is also right to point out that, ultimately, we need more preventive measures. Microchipping is great, but we need to look carefully at other measures such as speed controls in residential areas, signage and many more.
Without doubt, however, although legislation is easy, to enforce reporting is not. It might seem obvious, but cats are smaller than the animals that have to be reported, they are usually out and about at dawn or dusk, and drivers of larger vehicles may not notice a collision. I still do not think that any of that is an excuse to do nothing.
The Government told me in their response last year that they would publish the conclusion of a research project on the challenges preventing some cats from being reunited with their keepers after road traffic incidents. I followed up a month later to ask when we could expect to see that research, but I was told that it is undergoing review—basically, “It will be published when it is ready, so go away.” I have not heard or seen anything since, so I would appreciate it if the Minister provided us with an update on those findings, and what action the Government have taken as a result. Pets are our family, and no should be left uncertain about the wellbeing of their family.
Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) on leading today’s important and popular debate. I am particularly grateful to all 190,000 people who signed the petition, including more than 400 of my own Stevenage constituents.
For many in my constituency, cats are really important. Many residents love their cats, and all of us—whether we have our own cat or not—had a very special cat in our daily routine: Nala, the Stevenage station cat. Anyone passing through the station will likely remember her perched on the ticket barriers, greeting commuters and keeping a watchful eye on the daily rush. She became a familiar face, bringing a little warmth to thousands of journeys and earning a special place in our town’s heart. Tragically, Nala passed away last year. How much her loss was felt by our community was proven by the overwhelming support given to fund a statue that will be installed outside the station to ensure that her memory lives on.
Nala’s story reminds us that cats are not simply pets; they are companions, familiar faces and much-loved members of our families and communities. When they are injured on our roads, we have a responsibility to do what we can to help them. I have heard powerful stories in the debate today, and I have also heard from several of my own constituents who feared the worst while being denied the certainty that would allow them to grieve. They were left not knowing the fate of their feline friends.
That is the result of a simple but stark discrepancy in the law that bestows an obligation on drivers to report collisions involving dogs but not cats. To grieving owners, that distinction is deeply difficult to understand. A cat injured on the road cannot call for help, and it cannot tell a passing driver where it lives or how much pain it is in. It depends on someone stopping, showing compassion and seeking help. For a driver, that may mean a few minutes out of their day, but for an injured cat, it could mean the difference between life and death. For the family waiting at home, it could mean the difference between heartbreak and bringing their beloved pet home.
I am grateful to welcome my constituents Fern, Anthony and Leo Doyle to the Gallery today. They have experienced the devastating consequences of the current law. Their cat, Buddy, disappeared in November 2024, after climbing out of a bedroom window. For nearly a year, their family searched relentlessly, distributing more than 1,000 leaflets and contacting vets, councils, rescue centres and local Facebook groups. Nearly 11 months later, they finally learned the truth—Buddy had been struck by a vehicle and the driver had left without seeking help.
Fern has spoken about the thought that, had the driver stopped, Buddy might have survived and returned home. Explaining his death to Leo was one of the hardest conversations she has ever faced. As Fern said:
“They are never ‘just a cat’. They had a soul. They were part of a family. They were deeply loved.”
That cuts right the heart of the debate. The loss of a pet is painful enough without the added anguish of wondering whether someone could have helped, or whether a beloved companion suffered alone.
Of course, we must get the law right. There are concerns that extending the Road Traffic Act could unfairly expose owners to criminal or civil liability following a collision with a cat. Those concerns deserve proper consideration. However, we have also heard about alternatives. Where there is a will, there is a way, and we have a duty in this place to find that way. We have heard about amending other legislation, such as section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act, which could require drivers to remain with an injured cat and contact the appropriate authorities, or putting the highway code provisions into statute. Whatever we do, the focus must always be on preventing unnecessary suffering.
There may be different ways to achieve these aims. I urge the Minister to work with campaigners and animal welfare organisations to find a practical solution. We should also encourage the devolved Governments to follow England’s lead on compulsory cat microchipping. We cannot prevent every collision, but we can expect drivers to stop, where it is safe, check on an injured cat and seek help.
Finally, I return to the Doyle family. No change in the law can undo their loss, but we can act to prevent other families from enduring the same uncertainty, and we can give injured cats a better chance of survival. Every cat is important to someone. Our laws should reflect that and ensure that when a cat is hurt on our roads, compassion and responsibility come before simply driving away.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for opening this debate. I agree with him that the Members contributing to this debate have in their heart concern for the protection, welfare and wellbeing of cats. I also thank the 383 people across Paisley and Renfrewshire South who signed the petition. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cats. I also declare an interest as the proud servant of two cats, Clement Cattlee and Mo Meowlam. [Laughter.] That always gets a chuckle in the House.
As someone who loves cats very deeply, this issue hits close to home. I have spent many an evening sat up wondering where Clem has got to—she is the one that wanders—and have on more than one occasion sent my husband out in his dressing gown to find her. Like every animal lover in this place, the thought of any pet being hurt or lost in a road traffic accident is truly heartbreaking. I know the agonising distress that families face when a beloved companion goes missing and hold immense sympathy for the heartfelt intentions behind the motion we are debating.
Under the current Road Traffic Act, drivers must report collisions involving dogs and livestock, but not cats, even though the highway code rightly encourages drivers to report animal accidents and contact owners wherever possible. It is entirely understandable that so many compassionate people want to close that gap, especially given the disparity in treatment between cats and dogs, which are predominantly the pets we have in households across the country.
There is a complexity to those legislative changes. I am conscious that the country’s leading cat charity, Cats Protection, warned that introducing them could have various unintended consequences, including the imposition of criminal and civil liability on the owners of cats involved in collisions, which could inadvertently harm the very animals we are all trying to protect. The owners of animals currently covered by the Act have a legal duty to keep them under control or properly contained. If they cause an accident, their owners can face criminal liability and insurance claims. As cat owners, we know that cats are different from dogs. They are uniquely independent. They are curious creatures and their instinct is to roam, explore and experience the outdoors, which is so fundamental to who they are—certainly, trying to control Clem would be a very difficult task indeed.
The current law recognises that cats have a right to roam and cannot realistically be controlled in the same way as dogs or livestock, so bringing cats into a framework designed for dogs and livestock risks creating new legal responsibilities around containment, control and liability for cat owners. That could push cat owners to keep their cats indoors, preventing them from performing the natural behaviours that they need to perform to live happy, healthy lives.
The Cats Protection charity estimates that 3% of UK cats are involved in road traffic accidents, and behind that figure is a deeply personal, painful loss for the families of those pets. However, we must ensure that our response does not create a broader harm for the millions of happy, free-roaming cats across the country. That does not mean that something cannot be done—it can and it must—but we must channel our shared compassion into solutions that truly work. As we have heard, microchipping is the most reliable way to reunite pets with their families. That is now legally mandated in England, and I urge our devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to follow suit so that every pet across the UK has that vital safeguard.
On scanning, highways bodies across England and Scotland already collect and scan cat road victims and notify their owners. Cats Protection has published a scanning guide for local authorities, and I urge local authorities across the country to ensure that they have sight of that and are utilising it. Going back to my previous point, however, that is effective in ensuring that families receive the closure they so desperately seek only when a cat has a microchip.
On drivers, we are a nation of animal lovers, so stopping to help an injured animal should not be too much to ask of any decent, moral person. A driver who hits a cat should take them to a vet for emergency treatment, where they can also be scanned for a microchip—that is the quickest way to identify the owner. Increasing driver education so that motorists know how to act quickly and who to contact will save lives, bringing injured pets to emergency care when every minute counts.
I share the deep empathy and true love for these wonderful animals that has brought us all to this Chamber. That must also mean that we protect them by preserving who they are, including their roaming instincts. Every loss on our roads is a tragedy, but taking away a cat’s freedom to roam would be a quiet tragedy experienced by many millions more.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. I am grateful to CatsMatter for all its campaigning work on the issue of cat road deaths, and to every one of the almost 200,000 people, including 209 in my constituency, who signed the petition in support of a change in the law to require drivers to report collisions with cats to the police.
I am a lifelong cat lover, and I know that cats become members of our families. Whether it be my childhood cats Mitzi and Biff; Cos, the elderly ginger cat who we inherited from my husband’s grandmother when she passed away; Bella, the nervous kitten; Mr A, the rescue cat with the assertive personality; or our current cats Sylvie and Pearl, five-year-old siblings who have been with us since they were eight weeks old, I love cats. They are our companions and a constant presence in our homes, each with their own personality. I should give a special mention to Fanny, the Gipsy Hill station cat, who is loved by so many of my constituents. She oversees proceedings at our local station, makes sure that everything is in order and provides comfort and cheer to commuters as they wait for trains.
When a cat dies, we feel the loss very deeply. I know the specific anxiety and distress felt when a cat simply does not come home and we have to piece together the reasons why. In our case, we have lost two cats to dogs who were let out off the lead in the vicinity of our home. Both times, our much-loved pet simply did not return, and we discovered only much later what had happened to them. The uncertainty of having a missing animal compounded the eventual loss.
Some 230,000 cats are killed on our roads every year, and far too often, a devastating loss is compounded by not knowing what happened or by discovering an injured or dead animal after a protracted search. I know people who, after losing a cat in such circumstances, have never been able to bring themselves to get another one—not because they do not want to, but because the pain of the loss is simply too much to contemplate living through again.
The law is out of sync with the strength of public feeling on this issue, and does not adequately recognise the depth of the bonds that so many people have with their cats and how devastating their loss can be. I understand that there are some complexities about changing the law, highlighted by Cats Protection, concerning the difference between cats as roaming animals and other animals listed in the Road Traffic Act 1988, which are all required by law to be kept under control.
A duty to report collisions involving cats would primarily be about easing the pain of loss by enabling owners to understand what had happened to their cat and, where appropriate, to seek treatment for it as promptly as possible. A new duty should recognise that cats are roaming animals, and that accidents happen sometimes through no fault of the driver. It would need to recognise that a cat owner who allows a cat out to engage in its natural roaming behaviour is not at fault for doing so.
I agree with the points made by other Members about the need for clarity for drivers about which agency they should report a collision to, and that uncertainty extends to drivers who hit an animal currently reportable under the Road Traffic Act as well as under any new regulations concerning cats. I urge the Government to look very carefully at this issue and to work out a way in which the law can be updated to require collisions with cats to be reported. There is a gap between public sentiment and the current legislation. Where that occurs, the Government have a duty to work to fill it.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for so eloquently introducing this debate and for revealing himself as a lifelong cat lover. One of the things I like about this Chamber is what we learn about our colleagues here. I have to say, if I had participated in a guessing game about some of the cat-loving Members we would hear from today, I probably would not have done very well—perhaps somebody could create one of those internet guessing games about MPs and whether they lean dog or cat. That would certainly be more savoury than some of the web applications there have been about Members of Parliament—I shall certainly not say any more about that.
I thank CatsMatter for all its hard work over many years to advance protections for cats, and the 189,192 signatories to this e-petition, including 334 of my constituents in Didcot and Wantage. I have never had a cat of my own, but I absolutely love them. I want to illustrate the very strong bonds that can be formed between humans and cats by talking about three of the cats that I have formed a strong bond with over my lifetime.
The first was called Henry. He lived primarily in another house in our cul-de-sac, but he liked to visit a number of people in the area, including us. He was a ginger and white cat. He was very friendly and intelligent, and he really enjoyed human company. He was an enormous source of companionship and comfort to me during some quite lonely and difficult times as a child and as a teenager growing up.
Where I lived a few years ago, the landlord’s cat, Puzzle, would come and visit quite often. She was quite old—I think she was 17 when she died—but you would never know it: she was full of energy and very chatty. When my doors were open in summer, she would enter and announce herself by miaowing very volubly. She was incredibly friendly.
I wish that anybody who thinks that cats are aloof or unfriendly could have met Puzzle. There was a little shop in the complex where I was renting, and when somebody would enter the courtyard she would run over, wanting to say hello to the people who were there—even children, and cats are not always the biggest fans of children. If I went too long before stroking her, she would start crawling up my leg, demanding more strokes; I was always very happy to give them, but occasionally the working day had to take priority. I learned of her death—not from being hit by a car, thankfully, but by natural causes—the same week that Putin invaded Ukraine, and it definitely added to the feelings of sadness.
The final example is my friend Freddie’s cat, Mr Whiskers. He grew up as a stray cat roaming the mean streets of Haywards Heath for much of his life until he was adopted. He became an indoor cat because he got feline immunodeficiency virus as a result of being a stray. However, he had to be given up for adoption because his owner acquired a girlfriend who had a cat allergy—a rather controversial decision. I am not sure I would have chosen a significant other over Mr Whiskers, but that is one for another time. Mr Whiskers is called that because he has very distinctive whiskers. He is a black and white cat and is very friendly and chatty.
We have heard some very powerful accounts, both from Members and from their constituents, of the strong bond that they have formed with cats. I have a constituent called Jenny who lives in Moulsford. She and her family had a cat called Mowgli, who was sadly hit by a car four years ago. The car did not stop and Mowgli was later found by a resident who was jogging through the village and recognised that the cat belonged to Jenny. He was only one year old, and Jenny’s daughters were devastated when they found out what had happened. That perfectly illustrates what many Members have said during this debate: cats are intelligent, are members of our family and have their own characters, and we can be absolutely devastated when we lose them, particularly in a manner as brutal as being hit by a car.
That is why the Liberal Democrats are sympathetic to the petition’s ask that we extend the legal requirement to report road traffic collisions involving animals to include cats. It is not right that when a cat is hit by a vehicle, there is no legal requirement for the driver to report the incident to the police. As a result of such accidents, injured cats can be left at the roadside without prompt veterinary treatment, causing unnecessary suffering. We believe that it is important to improve welfare and quality of life for household pets, while also ensuring that all animals are treated equally in legislation. We believe that, like us, animals can experience suffering, pain and fear. Experts in the field of neuroscience are confident that mammals, birds and many other creatures possess consciousness. If we accept animal sentience, then animal cruelty or accidents must be considered unacceptable. It is crucial that we change the law to better protect animals from harm.
As some Members have said, cats are also working animals. It is not just dogs who do that; the role of cats in pest control has been established for millennia and continues to be important to this day. I know that there has been debate about getting cats here in Parliament. That has been declined as a suggestion because people are worried that they could get stuck in nooks and crannies —although I think that perhaps we have underestimated their ingenuity for getting themselves out of trouble as well as into it. However, certainly those of us who have occasionally seen a mouse scurrying in the Tea Room or the Pugin Room would welcome cats here in Parliament. They would also be very good for our morale, and maybe we need to start a campaign for that as well.
The Liberal Democrats have already had success in improving pet welfare in this Parliament, with my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) passing the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Act 2025, which aims to protect animal welfare by restricting the importation and non-commercial movement of dogs, cats and ferrets.
I want to say a little about what the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) said regarding an alternative approach advocated by Cats Protection. It is interesting that there is not necessarily unanimity among organisations that care passionately about cats that amending the Road Traffic Act is necessarily the sole solution to this challenge. As the hon. Lady said, the concern is that an amendment to include cats in the Road Traffic Act could force drivers to report collisions, but could also lead to various unintended consequences, for example, the imposition of criminal and civil liability on the owners of cats involved in collisions. I am sure that we would all agree that we would rather not open up another front of legal warfare—there are already so many as it is. Bringing cats into a framework designed for dogs and livestock could risk creating new legal responsibilities around containment, control and liability.
Cats Protection advocates an even bigger push on microchipping. It led the call, along with others, to campaign for compulsory microchipping. That was introduced in 2024 in England, and Cats Protection calls for it across the rest of the UK, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) said, along with an important duty on owners to keep their details up to date so that the chipping system can work. It also advocates for scanning. Highways agencies in England and Scotland already collect, scan and notify owners about cat road victims, and the charity has published a scanning guide for local authorities.
Finally, there is more that we can do not just within legislation but beyond it, as good citizens. A driver who hits a cat should take them to a vet for emergency treatment, where they can also be scanned for a microchip. That is the quickest way to identify the owner. Those are some options for the Minister to consider in tackling the problem. I look forward to hearing his comments.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I am grateful to you for chairing this debate. I know that many of my cat-loving constituents are deeply invested in this issue, with 363 of them having signed the petition. In common with many Members, I place on record my deep affection for my childhood cats: Scruff, Jasper, Ziggy and my personal favourite, Eartha Kitt.
Before we delve into the proposal in the petition, we should acknowledge the importance of reporting an incident through the existing channels where there has been a collision between a vehicle and a cat. Although there may not be a mandatory legislative requirement, I hope that most drivers, in the event of a collision, would show the level of British decency to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) alluded. If our own pet were involved in a collision, we would expect to receive the same British decency.
There are more than 11 million cats across the country, living in one in four households. We should always strive to protect these cherished pets. Indeed, many are a key part of their owners’ families. As my right hon. Friend the Member also said, they are not merely affectionate members of the family; they are world class at pest control, even if that can occasionally produce a messy result.
The death of any cat is naturally devastating to its owners, and we should support them by ensuring that they are informed of a collision, either so that their cat can receive treatment or so that they can achieve closure. Each person who signed the petition will feel the importance of this issue deeply. Rule 286 of the highway code states clearly:
“If you are involved in a collision which causes damage or injury to any other person, vehicle, animal or property, you MUST stop.”
I would hope that that requirement is adhered to, making it possible for someone to establish whether their cat has been involved in a collision. Reuniting cats with their owners has been made easier by the previous Government’s decision to roll out microchipping in England, ensuring that cats can be more easily identified and their owners contacted.
I am aware that DEFRA has been asked to commission a research project: first, to understand the operational challenges that prevent some cats from being reunited with their keepers after a road traffic collision, and secondly, to establish an evidence base to inform best practice for local authorities. The Government previously said that the project would report this year. I am sure that petitioners will be interested to hear from the Minister when its findings will be published and considered.
I have outlined those measures because I think we can all agree with the sentiments expressed by the petition. It would be disingenuous, however, to consider the comments made by the Government and the previous Conservative Administration and not conclude that there is currently no intention to bring forward legislation on this issue. That is not to dismiss the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) when he shared details of the provision announced in this Chamber in 2015 in response to the campaign for Harvey’s law. His note to me says that
“pets killed on the road must be collected, identified where possible, and their owners notified by the Highways Agency (now called National Highways)”,
so this provision exists already.
As a newly elected MP in 2024, I was not present when this issue was addressed in the House previously. A petition that almost mirrored this one was put forward in 2022 and followed by a debate in this Chamber in 2023. During the debate, the then Roads Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), said that the Government would look at the issue and that he would ask the Department to consider whether it would be appropriate to take further action. The Government subsequently indicated that they believed that a combination of microchipping and efforts by local authorities to reunite cats with their owners was the most effective way forward.
However, we must note a difference between today’s debate and the one in 2023. Since the election, the Labour Government have presided over a reduction in police officer numbers. Requiring the police to deal with collisions involving cats would add to an increasingly challenging workload. Any further demands on police time must be even more carefully considered as a result.
Although it would be simple to ask this Minister to show the same consideration as in 2023, the Government’s response to this petition suggests that the Department for Transport holds the same position as it did then. Furthermore, the Government’s road safety strategy does not mention animals or cats. Therefore, I will avoid reversing roles with the former shadow Minister by asking for the same things as Labour did in 2023, especially when the Government’s position appears to be clear. I will not step on the Minister’s prepared remarks by reiterating reasons given during the previous debate. Given the Department’s written petition response, I expect him to set them out again today.
Instead, I ask the Minister whether anything beyond the measures that the Government have already outlined could be considered. That means going beyond best practice and considering how existing technologies could be utilised more effectively. That might include making things easier for those who need to access microchip database information. More broadly, are there ways of utilising technologies such as GPS collars to help identify more quickly a cat that has tragically been killed during a collision? If we are to consider ways of making things easier for owners, we should consider how information already provided by the private sector could be utilised where owners consent to it being used for this reason.
As I said at the outset, we all share the sentiments set out in this petition. Cat owners are absolutely right to want their cat to be returned to them as quickly as possible. That is the least that all pet owners deserve. However, unless there has been a change of position, I am not clear on whether the Department for Transport believes that such a measure could be implemented effectively.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Justin Madders)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) on opening the debate and setting out the various issues that have led to us considering the petition.
We have heard a great many contributions. We heard from the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon); from my hon. Friends the Members for Carlisle (Ms Minns), for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge), for Stirling and Strathallan (Chris Kane), for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles), for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), for Dartford (Jim Dickson), for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia), for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes); from the right hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale); and from the hon. Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade), for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon), for Yeovil (Adam Dance) and for Leicester South (Shockat Adam). That indicates the widespread interest in this matter across the nation.
I welcome the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths), to her place. We have worked together on a Select Committee, and I hope that, in her new role, we can continue the constructive relationship we enjoyed on the Committee.
The strength of feeling is clear. As we have heard, 189,000 people signed the petition, many because they know at first hand the distress caused when a cat is struck on the road and the family is not given any answers. A number of Members spoke with great personal knowledge and sincerity about their own situations. The hon. Member for Newton Abbot spoke about his sad experiences and about the sense of unfairness that people feel about the different treatment, which I will come to. He also rightly pointed out that the RSPCA questions whether the resources are in place to deal with what the petitioners ask for.
My hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth had a cat who lived for 20 years, which is an incredible achievement; he obviously looked after it very well. Both he and the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich spoke clearly and passionately about the question of decency. It really is a question of decency: any decent person who hit an animal on the road would not just leave it there in pain, and would try to do something about it.
It is fair to say that there are practical considerations about how easy it would be to put on a statutory footing what I think everyone in this Chamber would instinctively feel is the right thing to do. The right hon. Member for South Holland and the Deepings talked about his time in office and the statutory guidance issued then. He is no longer here, but I am sure he will read Hansard in the morning. That guidance remains active across the strategic road network, and there is a requirement on National Highways operators to collect, log and scan deceased domestic pets, including cats, and to make a proactive attempt to contact the owners. The microchip registration system that we now have in place will hopefully mean that, in most cases, owners are contacted when one of those sad incidents occurs.
We heard a number of other excellent contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood gave us a long list of the cats in her family. It sounds like Fanny is a local celebrity in the constituency—I am sure she will appear on some leaflets in the not-too-distant future. My hon. Friend spoke movingly about the depth of the bond between cats and their owners, which all Members have spoken about with a great deal of sincerity, and made an important point about needing clarity on who a driver should report a collision to. I understand that officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be meeting representatives from CatsMatter to discuss that issue further, because although we may not be able to change the law in this Chamber, we can certainly pick up some of the practical measures that can be taken to make this difficult situation easier.
We heard an excellent speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge, who is clearly an active campaigner in this area. She made it clear that she is a cat lover as well, and she is, of course, the most appropriately named Member of us all. She recognised that there is a difference between cats and dogs and talked about some of the alternative measures and solutions we can consider, which I will come to. She also asked about other jurisdictions, which a couple of other Members mentioned. Most of those countries were self-contained and small, but I will ask officials to look at how the laws have operated in different countries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West gave an excellent speech, giving us a little insight into his cat issues. I join him in his praise of the PDSA, which does excellent work. My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage spoke with great sincerity about his constituents Fern, Anthony and Leo and their sad experience of trying to find Buddy for almost a year. His comment that cats are never just pets is a statement that all Members who have spoken would recognise.
My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South has made it clear to me on many occasions that she is very much a cat lover. She also declared her work on the APPG, which I commend. She acknowledges that there are concerns with the proposals, particularly from Cats Protection. She also made a point, which I will come to, about how it is quite problematic to have an equivalence, for the reasons she outlined. I agree that that does not mean nothing can be done. We will certainly look at what can be done.
Dr Arthur
I am pleased to hear that a DEFRA Minister is going to meet CatsMatter to talk about this issue. I also welcome the Minister’s talk of reviewing what other jurisdictions do; will he commit to publishing that work in some shape or form, so that we can get sight of it?
Justin Madders
I am sure we can find a way of publishing it. I have sprung that on my officials this evening, so I do not know exactly what form it will take, but at the very least I can commit to writing to Members who have taken part in the debate to advise on what we find from that review. As I say, I am not familiar with the other jurisdictions, and it may be that the laws and requirements are different—we know that the demography and topography of those countries is different—but it is fair for us to consider that.
As Members have pointed out, the current position is that although drivers are not required to report every animal death on the road, they should, where it is safe and practicable, try to identify the owner of a domestic animal and let them know what has happened. A number of Members spoke about wanting to make that mandatory, and I understand why, but we have to have legislation that is both workable and safe. As several Members acknowledged, cats are mostly smaller than dogs, and a driver may not actually realise that a collision has occurred—that is probably more relevant given the propensity for larger vehicles nowadays. When the nights are drawing in, if it is a rural road with high-speed traffic, it is actually quite dangerous to ask people to leave their vehicle to search for a cat. That could create more danger and injury. There are also practical difficulties—we must consider locating the animal, arranging identification and ensuring that any reporting system can be enforced consistently.
I recognise the concern that owners should have the best possible chance of knowing what has happened to their pet when cats are found by the roadside. As Members have said, any decent human being would want that to happen and would try to do their best. One of my family’s cats, Ruby, was returned to us by a good-natured neighbour who had discovered her on the roadside after she was run over. It was a very sad time but, thinking of my children’s perspective, I would rather things happened in that way than for them to discover Ruby on the roadside on the walk to school the next morning. I applaud the public spiritedness of the individual who returned Ruby to us that night.
That shows that such gestures, difficult though they are, really do go a long way to providing some comfort to people who in a distressed situation, and that is the purpose behind the public campaign known as Gizmo’s Legacy, which calls for local authorities to scan microchips so that owners can be identified and informed. We support the principle that local authorities should have effective processes in place in such circumstances, and we want to encourage councils to be as helpful as they can be in those situations. As Members have acknowledged, that is why DEFRA has commissioned research into how its processes affect the reunification of owners with cats and dogs that are found dead by the roadside, with the aim of identifying both best practice and barriers. When the findings are published, they will support the development of best practice guidance for local authorities, so that more owners can be notified, where possible.
The hon. Member for Yeovil asked when the research would be published. It is fair to say that the research project is still being reviewed, but it will be published as soon as the process has concluded. I doubt very much that he was told to go away, but I assure him that both his comments and those of other Members about their desire to see that report will be transmitted to DEFRA after the debate.
Microchipping it is clearly one of the things that makes the research much more valuable than it might have been a few years ago. As the Opposition spokesperson pointed out, since June 2024 it has been compulsory for all cats over the age of 20 weeks to be microchipped and registered on a compliant database, unless they are exempt or free-living. Microchipping supports responsible pet ownership and gives owners a better chance of being reunited with their pets if they are lost or have strayed.
I have personal experience of lost cats. A few years ago, one of our cats, Trixie, went on a six-week holiday to Chester. We were very grateful to the public-spirited individual who brought her back. Trixie has never told us what she was up to for those six weeks, or how she managed to get to Chester in the first place. I think most Members recognise that cats have quite a secretive nature.
DEFRA is working with the pet-microchipping sector to make the regime more effective, including by improving the accuracy and accessibility of records, and by strengthening the oversight of microchip databases. I am pleased to report that, from the end of last month and following close work with DEFRA, the Association of Microchip Database Operators has launched a single point of search for microchip databases. This was introduced to make it faster and easier for vets and local authorities to access microchip records. We will continue to support the roll-out of cat microchipping as part of the wider work to help owners to identify and recover their pets.
As Members recognised, and as Cats Protection has acknowledged, there could be numerous unintended consequences if we were to make stopping and reporting compulsory. Instead, our priority is to prevent collisions in the first place by making roads safer for everyone. That broader approach should reduce the number of cats that are killed or injured.
A number of reasons have been put forward as to why cats and dogs are classified differently. Clearly, the origins of the distinction are historic, but there are still pertinent differences today, and the effective right to roam is something that makes it very difficult for us to put dogs and cats on an equivalent legislative footing. Making reporting mandatory would create a new criminal offence that would be difficult to enforce. On balance, then, we believe that the existing distinction should remain.
We will continue to engage with advocates in this area. We will look at the emerging research and do what we can to encourage responsible actions from the wider public. On that note, Mr Vickers, I will give the hon. Member for Newton Abbot an opportunity to respond to the debate.
Martin Wrigley
I thank Mandy Hobbis, Tiya Ivy, CatsMatter and the nearly 200,000 people who signed the petition, which has enabled us to have this debate. I also thank Members from across the House for their contributions.
Some significant themes have emerged from the debate, including cats being part of the family; people not knowing what has happened to their lost cat adding to the trauma of the situation; people loving their cats; and too many cats being hit by cars. I particularly noted the statistic that every day in every constituency two cats are hit by cars. That is just too many for nothing to happen.
Two members of this robust institution have not been mentioned today—I am surprised they were not referred to, although I loved hearing about Clem Cattlee, Mo Meowlam and the other cats around the place—and they are Larry in No. 10 and Mr Speaker’s cat Attlee. They might, like me, be slightly disappointed by the Minister’s response to the debate.
I have great sympathy for all those Members from across the House who talked about the issues with their own animals and those of their constituents. When I was elected, I promised to stand up for cats, and I am pleased to be able to do so—