Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
Debate between Scott Arthur and Justin Madders(1 week, 2 days ago)
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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.
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.
Fireworks: Sale and Use
Debate between Scott Arthur and Justin Madders(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Justin Madders
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I think I have already recognised and acknowledged that there is a slight incongruity about how it works, which is something we will consider as we move forward.
Local authority trading standards work with retailers to ensure that fireworks are sold safely, and they have powers to enforce. Again, we have heard questions about whether that is currently sufficient. Trading standards can also enforce against those selling fireworks without an appropriate licence—for example, outside the normal selling period. But it is clear from the debate that some Members feel the current legislation is not only inadequate but is not being enforced properly.
Some Members mentioned the issue of noise. We recognise the impact of fireworks on vulnerable people, including veterans and those with post-traumatic stress disorder, and animals. That, along with antisocial use, is a key concern, as I have heard on a number of occasions. This year I launched a fireworks campaign to provide guidance on minimising their negative impacts. The campaign was well received on social media and shared by our key enforcement partners. But of course those who were determined to cause trouble and those who do not have any respect for others will not take heed of that.
Various animal charities have published guidance on how to protect animals during the fireworks season. We will continue to work collaboratively with animal welfare organisations, alongside other charities, to ensure that the messaging reaches the public.
Justin Madders
This is the first time in several years that the campaign has taken place. Hopefully there will be a baseline of evidence that we can look to. I will commit to write to my hon. Friend to see what we can elicit from officials in that respect.
As I say, UK fireworks retailers support the voluntary fireworks code, which contains advice on safety and considerate use. Many lower-noise firework products—those around 90 dB or below—are already on the market, with consumers recognising that as an option. I hope that market continues to grow. Intelligence has been shared that shows that some considerate supermarket retailers are now stocking lower-noise fireworks, and some refuse to stock fireworks altogether. Testing commissioned by the Office for Product Safety and Standards found that consumer firework products have a very high compliance with the 120 dB limit set out in law, so the issue is not with the products but with where the law sets the limit.
Many Members raised concerns about the noise and disruption that fireworks cause, but acknowledged that displays have a contribution to make to community groups up and down the country as they often raise money for good causes. In 2019, the Petitions Committee noted that point and stated that
“these community displays have widespread local support and increase community cohesion.”
It also noted that a ban on fireworks could have unintended consequences, such as a “substantial economic effect” on the industry and the risk of a black market, which the National Fire Chiefs Council and the National Police Chiefs’ Council raised in their evidence to the inquiry. There is a lot to consider, but we recognise the strength of feeling about fireworks and their negative impact on some groups in society. I also recognise the need for effective regulation in this area.
We must recognise the place of fireworks in cultural and community celebrations and consider carefully any unintended consequences. I acknowledge that, as has been said, there is a paucity of evidence about the effectiveness of the current regulations. I am committed to engaging with all stakeholders, including businesses, consumer groups and charities, to understand the issues and inform any future decisions in this policy area. The safety of the public and the impact on people and animals will be paramount in those considerations. I hope this dialogue will continue.