Westminster Hall Debate January 2023

Following the successful petition by Olivia on behalf of Dart, a debate on the subject of cats that are hit by cars being made a reportable offence took place on January 9th. For those who missed the debate, we have some great news to report back 😸 Firstly, we were so pleased to see the level of support from the Minister and MPs, and felt it was a really constructive debate. RTAs, microchipping and scanning are very closely linked, and we were happy to see all of them being discussed in the debate with some great ideas put forward.

The Petitions Committee carried out a public engagement exercise on requiring motorists to stop and report collisions with cats in advance of the planned debate. This was published on December 19th 2022. The summary of the online survey reports that respondents said that cats should be recognised in law in the same way as dogs. A huge thank you again to everyone who responded to the online survey. 97% of respondents said that having it made a reportable offence, it would save them from the unnecessary pain that followed, with 72% saying their mental health was affected following their cats incident. 40% likened losing a cat to a human family member. The 3 reasons people gave for supporting such a law was 1) Veterinary support for the injured cats. 2) Reduced shock for the owners and 3) Greater chance of cat being reunited with their owner through scanned microchips.

In terms of reportable road accidents, it has been, and will continue to be, a long road to finally get there but we know that with persistence by all it's just a matter of when, not if, the law is changed! The debate went very well, receiving cross party support. As you all know by now, the law is soon to change to require all cats to be microchipped by law. Why is this so deeply linked and so important? Because our earlier meetings with DEFRA following the successful Cats Bill resulted in them deciding that, for future reportable road accident laws to be successful, cats would first need to be identifiable once reported. The issue of road accidents was to be discussed further following the implementation of compulsory microchipping, but the recent political turmoil on top of domestic and world events has inevitably caused a delay. Before the next election arrives, we have been urging the Government to complete work on microchipping and scanning since so much work has been done and delayed so much already. Some of you may remember us getting reportable road accidents involving cats as a manifesto commitment back in 2018. While the Conservatives opted for compulsory microchipping to begin with, Labour committed to finally making the fleeing of a road accident involving a cat a criminal offence. We enjoyed such unwavering support from the then Shadow Secretary of State for DEFRA, and had a productive meeting with her again in late 2022 where we were invited to the House of Lords to discuss reportable road accidents again becoming a manifesto commitment. We are urging all the parties to make such a commitment going into the next election and we hope, should there not be the time in this Parliament, that Olivia's debate has played a big part in bringing this back into the limelight and reminded them that this is an issue people care about and want to see happen, and they must commit to it going forward.

As our followers will know, we had been working with DEFRA for a number of years on microchipping and scanning, and we had written a best practice guide that would be used to form official government guidance for local councils on scanning. Recent changes in Government and at DEFRA left us unsure if this work would be continued, so we are thrilled to say the Government announced on Monday that it will be, and to show their commitment to it they will be commissioning a research project soon! We have been stakeholders on this for a number of years and know how much work has already been done by the previous administration. We are very keen to continue working with DEFRA and Transport Department officials on this as it progresses further. The Government also confirmed their commitment to seeing the microchipping legislation through, saying they look forward to it's introduction that will make it compulsory. They also confirm that the introduction of the law is FINALLY just weeks away 😺

All round it was a very good debate with lots of promise for cat welfare going forward. This is just the beginning with a lot of work still to be done, but things are heading in the right direction!