Time to put pointless ‘action plans’ in the cat litter tray - Susan Dalgety

A report suggested cats could be banned from going outside

All hell broke loose. Headline writers screamed that the SNP may ban families from getting a cat. Social media was awash with pictures of cats whose largely female owners threatened to descend on Bute House in protest.

Trust me, not even the SNP’s most experienced spin doctors are a match for an army of cat women.

National treasure TV’s Jackie Bird got in the act. She is the proud guardian (no-one owns a cat) of three cats: Willow, Malin and Mr Bailey, and she told one newspaper that she had printed out a copy of the report and put in their litter tray.

The First Minister was in danger of losing the 2026 Holyrood election, not because the country’s finances and public services are in a mess, but because of cats.

Little wonder then that an irritable Mr Swinney appeared before TV cameras last week to deny that his government had ever considered banning cats.

"We have absolutely no intention of banning cats. There's no way that's going to happen," he told BBC Scotland.

Nor will Ms Bird’s pets – or any of Scotland’s 830,000 cats – have to stay indoors. Pressed on the possibility of a curfew for cats, he said: "I'm giving you a very clear statement – we're not going to do that."

Not that his grumpy denial was an end to the matter. John Swinney will forever be on the record as having denied his government was planning to ban pet cats. It’s a classic “gotcha” tactic.

I might have some sympathy with the First Minister if he had been responding to speculation stirred up by opposition parties, but that was not the case here. The recommendation to ban cats was published by his own government.

The report was written by the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission, which is made up of 12 commissioners who report to the Scottish Government on matters of animal protection.

Its contents – including the proposal for a cat curfew and ban – had been deemed fit for publication by a team of civil servants. And only days before John Swinney denied any plans to cull the nation’s cats, his press office issued a statement saying that ministers were “fully” considering the report.

The Scottish Government has a bad habit of issuing meaningless ‘action’ plans. It has targets for everything from net zero to curbing bad behaviour in schools, most of which it seems to miss.

John Swinney presides over an administration that judges success by the range of advisory groups it can recruit, not the impact on people’s lives. Little wonder then that nonsensical policies like banning pet cats can escape a closed committee room and end up on the front pages.

Instead of being annoyed at the media for asking a legitimate question, Swinney should be taking action to reduce the number of pointless papers coming out of St Andrew’s House.