Road Traffic Collisions Involving Cats

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Harris. I have to declare an interest as the owner of two very pampered and special cats: Milly, who is 14 years old, and Louie, who moved into his forever home with us during lockdown, from the comfort of the Cats Protection adoption centre in Exeter. I should also make Members aware that I have another interest, as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cats.

In my mind, a home is not a home without a cat. Both my cats could be described as sharing their house with my husband and me. They have Natalie and Caroline, who visit and look after them while we are in London, and they certainly greet us on our return—although that is probably just to secure more Dreamies.

I believe that cats should receive the same treatment as other animals under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, under which, as has been described,

“a driver is required to…report an accident involving specified animals including horses, cattle, asses, mules”

—I will not go on; it has already been said—

“but not cats or wild animals.”

The Government have said:

“This requirement arises from their status as working animals rather than as domestic pets.”

But let us not forget that cats often do work, particularly in the countryside, where they keep vermin down, so I cannot see how a cat cannot be described as a working animal. The Government also say:

“To introduce such a measure within the provision of section 170 would require primary legislation.”

I would ask the Government to consider introducing the required legislation at the earliest possible time.

I would like to share something I witnessed happening in my division when I was at Cornwall county councillor. It involved a cat called Topsy, who belonged to my son’s best friend. I was following a car that hit a cat and saw the driver get out and carefully place the cat in his car. It looked like Topsy, but I was not sure. The mother of that five-year-old told me the next day that her son was distraught at the loss of his pet, who had not returned home. I relayed to her that I may have witnessed an accident involving Topsy the cat, but had not been able to get the car registration number. This story has a happy ending. The young man who had lifted the cat carefully into his car had taken her to the vets. She received treatment and an advert was placed in the local shop window, calling for the owner to come forward—I emphasise that this incident happened before social media was widely used to publicise things. Topsy was reunited with her owner and lived a long and happy life.

My own experience does not have such a happy outcome. I had a little black cat called Biscay. He would happily hunt in and around the gardens and the neighbourhood. One day, a neighbour informed me that little Biscay was seen in the driveway of a house behind mine, and when I got there, I realised that he had been injured and had died. Many more cats in my neighbourhood have suffered the same fatal ending to their lives, and as the local councillor, I explored what could be done to make this very narrow lane safer for both pets and pedestrians. I explained to council officers that the road was regularly used by primary school children, and that each cat that had suffered a fatal accident could have potentially been a child. I was told that there were no statistics kept for cats, as these incidents were not reportable. Fortunately, I persevered and managed to get road traffic calming in place on the road, to slow the traffic. This would have been far easier if each accident involving a cat had been reportable and official statistics readily available.

It is a shame that we do not hear more positive stories, such as that of Topsy. It is essential that we remember that cats are more often than not family members, and we should ensure that they are respected. We should also remember that, as I have mentioned, statistics can often be used to introduce road safety measures that help pedestrians, and I urge the Minister to explore introducing legislation as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Murray]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that if primary legislation is needed, Members may be able to bring forward a ten-minute rule Bill or private Member’s Bill that amends the Act?

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. If primary legislation is needed, then the way to change the law could indeed be via a private Member’s Bill. Whether it would get Government support and time is a matter for others, but that would be a way to do it.

While we must do all we can to improve the safety of our roads, we must be careful not to make any decisions that could make things worse or have unforeseen effects in a rush to resolve concerns about how the law operates. Hon. Members from across the House have made important points about doing the right thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) gave the personal example of Stevie, and set out how she stepped in and did the right thing.

The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) also said that doing the right thing is particularly important. As hon. Members have pointed out, although there is no obligation to report all animal collisions on the road, rule 286 of the Highway Code advises drivers to report any collision involving an animal to the police; if possible, they should make inquiries to ascertain the owner of a domestic animal, so as to advise them of the situation.

As Members, including the hon. Member for Gower, have made clear, cats tend to roam unaccompanied and are likely to go out at night. Drivers may not realise that they have had a collision with a cat in some instances, as they are small animals, similar to rabbits or other wild animals that can cross roads late at night. There are also hazards associated with stopping to check whether animals are alive after people have knocked them over, especially with very small animals. A requirement to report road collisions involving a cat would be difficult to enforce, especially when, as hon. Members have made clear, Petplan suggests there might be hundreds of thousands of these incidents brought forward a year.

In 2021, there were 348 reported road collisions in which both an animal and a person were involved directly. That is just an animal and a person. If we were talking about hundreds of thousands of cases, there would be a huge extra impact and administrative burden, especially given the free-roaming nature of cats. It is for that reason that the Government do not plan at present to make it a legal requirement for drivers to stop and report collisions with cats, but I would like to go into what we are attempting to do in this space, because we recognise how painful it is for owners to lose a pet. I remember going home from school as a youngster and learning—this was when I first realised that animals could die—that my family dog had sadly passed away. I think we have all had that experience at some point in our life.

In the last few years, we have pushed microchipping. It is the best way of reuniting owners with pets that have been tragically killed, stolen, or had a variety of other issues. Since the introduction of compulsory microchipping for dogs in 2016, over 90% of the dog population has been microchipped. That has been particularly successful in increasing reunification rates for stray dogs.

As hon. Members from across the House have pointed out, we have a manifesto commitment to introduce compulsory cat microchipping, and we consulted on that last year. The consultation showed that there was well over 99% support for that measure, which is fantastic. I spoke about the issue in Westminster Hall a couple of years ago, and both my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) and the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned it. We are committed to introducing it, and we will lay the legislation for England before Parliament in the coming weeks. I hope that the devolved Administrations will follow closely, as this is a devolved issue in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I welcome the words of the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson). She has used her platform in this place to press for similar action in Holyrood and across the rest of the United Kingdom. I recognise that it is terribly sad when a cat is injured or killed on the roads, and it does not matter what side of the border it is on.

As the hon. Member for Gower mentioned, National Highways already requires its contractors to record details of any cats or dogs found on the roadside, and the location in which they were found. Some of that is due to the importance of strategic roads. We do not want stray animals on the national highways, so we want to know of any gaps in fences and so on. There is a different health and safety dynamic to that, but it is something that we implemented. National Highways is under the Department for Transport and so is a direct responsibility of the Government. National Highways must also scan for a microchip, and store the animal, with the aim of reuniting it with its owner where possible.

Similarly, we understand that the overwhelming majority of local authorities have arrangements in place to scan cats and dogs found by the roadside, and to endeavour to reunite the animal with its keeper. Many pets will therefore be reunited, but we recognise that there may be challenges to successful reunification in some cases. For example, sadly reunification may not be possible if the nature of the animal’s injuries affect the functionality of the microchip, or if a microchip’s records are out of date. That is particularly the case with cats.