Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats

Martin Wrigley Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[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?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in 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—