A big thank you to Gerry, Russell and Jasper who gave me a tour of the cutting-edge facilities at North Downs Specialist Referrals, a hospital for cats and dogs just outside Bletchingley.

It was a privilege to see some treatments in action, meet some of their 180-strong team and to discuss some of the success they’ve had recently - including their Cat Friendly Clinic Gold accreditation and their Green award, the highest accolade from Investors in the Environment.

An interesting fact was that vets use plug-in pheromone emitters to calm cats down before surgery - perhaps that could be of use in Parliament…