Cats charity volunteers in Suffolk have backed a bid to change the law over cat road deaths.

Conservative Rehman Chishti’s Cats Bill has called for drivers who injure or kill cats to be forced by law to stop and provide details or inform police.

The MP also wants to see microchipping of certain cats. He tabled the private member’s bill in the Commons.

Gillian Clark, co-ordinator of Framlingham & Saxmundham Cats Protection, said: “I think it’s a very good idea.

“We certainly would welcome this - we do get a fair few missing cats, and it’s much easier if you know what has happened, you have the cat’s body and you can deal with it.”

She said one problem was that cats roam, unlike dogs, so it would be a good idea if they were all microchipped, meaning owners can be traced. Cats Protection microchips all cats before they are rehomed.

Teresa Andrews, co-ordinator of Ipswich Cats Protection, said: “It would be a very good idea, but it’s going to be very difficult to do. There are so many stray cats in Ipswich at the moment, it’s unbelievable, and most of them are not microchipped.”

She said, for the idea to succeed, it would be important to include a requirement for cats to be microchipped in the new law so that owners could be traced, as with dogs.

The Cats Bill says: “Bill to require the driver of a mechanically propelled vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury or death to a cat to stop and give information or report the accident to the police; to require the keepers of certain cats to ensure they are microchipped; and for connected purposes.”

The Bill is unlikely to become law in its current form due to a lack of parliamentary time to clear all necessary stages.