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.