Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats

Olly Glover Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[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.