Is the Scottish government coming for your cats?

In what has to be a clear contender for the most nonsensical policy proposal of the year so far, the SNP was apparently considering a ban on pet cats.

Moggie owners across Scotland will have been alarmed to read in the weekend papers about proposals for ‘cat-containment zones’ being imposed on their neighbourhoods. These would be areas where residents would be ordered to keep their cats indoors, or banned from owning them altogether, in order to protect local wildlife. According to the Sunday Telegraph, SNP ministers were ‘fully considering’ the proposals.

Then, within 24 hours, came the SNP’s denial, no doubt prompted by the furious public backlash. Yesterday, Scottish first minister John Swinney insisted that his government has ‘no intention’ of introducing cat-related restrictions and ‘is not going to be banning cats’.

The cat-ban proposals came from the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC), which was set up by Nicola Sturgeon’s government in 2020 to recommend policies to improve the ‘welfare of sentient animals in Scotland’. In a report published last month on ‘responsible cat ownership’, it singled out domestic cats as having a ‘significant impact on wildlife populations’ – by hunting birds and mice, as well as by competing for resources and interbreeding with wildcats.

Some of the proposals took inspiration from Australia, where cat curfews and other ‘cat-abatement plans’ are in place in certain states – and where pet cats are considered, according to Aussie environment minister Tanya Plibersek, to be ‘dangerous and ruthless predators’.

As well as a full-on ban on owning cats or allowing cats to leave the house, the SAWC proposed a number of other restrictions in areas where there are particularly large populations of endangered species. These include mandatory neutering of pet cats to stop them breeding with feral ones, and only allowing cats outside if they’re kept on a lead.

Anyone who has ever owned a cat will know that all this would be far more difficult than it sounds. Keeping a cat ‘contained’ who doesn’t want to be is no mean feat. Unlike dogs, they don’t often come when you call them and they are prone to scaling over, wriggling under or digging their way through any obstacles that might stand between them and their freedom.

Besides, as Alice Palombo, head of the Cats Protection charity, points out, keeping cats indoors isn’t very good for them. ‘Cats need to be able to perform natural cat-like behaviours, if they’re to live happy, healthy lives’, she said. One has to wonder if anyone who owns a cat was ever consulted before the SAWC’s animal-welfare ‘experts’ hit print on their report.

That these policies were commissioned by the SNP – and then, it seems, seriously entertained – shows just how out of touch and nannying the Scottish political class has become. Did SNP bigwigs, even for a moment, expect Scots to give up their feline companions, just to ensure that a ring-nosed dormouse or lesser-spotted garble gets to live for a few months more? It also confirms that there is no area of Scots’ private lives, from how they raise their kids to what they eat and drink to where they keep their pets, the SNP isn’t prepared to stick its paws into.

Scotland’s cats are safe for now. But who knows how long it will be before the meddlesome SNP tries to claw back your right to own a furry friend?

Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.