UP to 50 cats are reportedly killed every month by anti-freeze, in many cases after drinking it from garden water features.
Environment minister George Eustace said he was concerned that many were being poisoned because of the trend of putting anti-freeze into garden water features over the winter months.
The product is attractive to animals as it contains an extremely toxic sweet chemical called ethylene glycol, which can lead to kidney failure and death, even if consumed in small doses.
In a debate on Monday (December 1) in the House of Commons, Mr Eustace called for warning labels to be placed on bottles of anti-freeze to warn consumers of the dangers to their beloved pets.
He told MPs: "I do understand some people may even be using anti-freeze in their garden water features to stop them freezing up in winter and there are some reports of this.
"There are internet chat forums discussing whether this is sensible or not to use anti-freeze in such features and this could result in animals being inadvertently poisoned, whether domestic pets or wildlife.
"We don't know again whether this is the cause but it certainly has the potential to be and it's another issue that caused me some concern when investigating this issue ahead of the debate."
The Commons debate was called by Mark Spencer, the Tory MP for Sherwood, who owns his own cat called Parsnip.h
Mr Eustace was responding to Mr Spencer, who had said the charity Cats Protection had spotted 1,197 reports of anti-freeze poisoning of cats in the country since November 2012 – around 50 per month.
