Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

I was pleased to support my hon. Friend’s ten-minute rule Bill, because I am a strong supporter of more transparent labelling for meat products. The wording of the e-petition does not go into the religious rites said over slaughtered meat, but he makes an extremely good point.

We have already discussed that there is no nice way for any animal to die. It is important, however, to get in context the volumes of halal and shechita meat compared with everything else. One estimate is that 114 million animals are killed annually in the UK using the halal method, 80% of which will have been stunned first, and only 2 million animals are killed under the Jewish shechita method. An RSPCA poll showed that only two fifths of people surveyed knew that the exemption in the law applied to the shechita method of slaughter. Therefore, while there has been much comment ahead of the debate from the Jewish community, the number of animals slaughtered according to shechita requirements is small.

To put that into content, while there is no nice way for an animal to die, sadly there are many instances in which animals are mis-stunned and mis-slaughtered. In my research for the debate, I was horrified to realise that, each year, potentially hundreds of thousands of animals are not stunned properly before slaughter, yet data on the extent of the problem are practically non-existent.

When the Minister addresses the Chamber, I hope he will stress his commitment to get the Food Standards Agency to raise its game to ensure not only that all slaughterhouses are properly monitored, but that the number of mis-stuns is properly recorded. In some years, critical instances of mis-stunning have been in single figures when we all know that the scale of the problem is potentially hundreds of thousands. Of course, the number of animals mis-stunned could well be greater than the number of animals slaughtered by the shechita method appropriate for the Jewish community.

The strong view of the BVA, the RSPCA and the other organisations behind the e-petition is that there is clear scientific evidence that slaughter without pre-stunning causes pain and distress. Behavioural and brain scanning research reveals that animals experience pain when their neck is cut and they inhale their own blood, which causes pain and distress—that was very much the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). Slaughter without pre-stunning causes a delay to loss of consciousness. It can take up to two minutes for cattle to lose consciousness, up to 20 seconds for sheep, up to two and a half minutes or more for poultry, and sometimes 15 minutes or more for fish. Pre-stunning delivers an instant loss of consciousness when it is done correctly.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that a great deal more research has been done on this matter recently, and that our knowledge of the effects on animals has increased? We understand better nowadays their level of suffering than we ever have previously.

[Mr Hollobone]

That is an extremely good point, and the House will want to ensure that our domestic legislation follows the evidence. If the quality of the evidence is improved by scientific advance, that should surely be reflected in the laws that we pass.

As has been said, EU and UK law requires all farm animals to be stunned before slaughter, but there is an exemption for religious slaughter. That comes back to the point mentioned by the hon. Member for Mansfield: although the e-petition mentions stun versus non-stun, one soon gets on to the religious dimension. The EU law on slaughter is contained in European Council regulation 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing. The regulation came into force in January 2013 and allows member states to apply a derogation to permit slaughter without stunning for religious and traditional purposes. That can be decided at member state level.

Interestingly, practice differs across the European Union. Slaughter without prior stunning has been banned in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark. In Austria, Estonia, Finland and Slovakia, stunning is required immediately after the incision if the animal has not been stunned before. In Germany, abattoirs have to prove the religious needs, and the number of animals to be slaughtered to satisfy the needs of the religious community concerned, before they are granted a licence. In Australia, stunning at slaughter is required, but there is an option for a state or meat inspection authority to provide an exemption and approve an abattoir for ritual slaughter without prior stunning for the domestic market, but even in those cases, post-cut stunning is a requirement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley mentioned the large number of animals that are slaughtered in this country without having been stunned first, and how that exceeds the requirements of the Muslim and Jewish communities. The Food Standards Agency carried out a survey of slaughterhouses in September 2013, and the results published last month indicated that in 2013, 31 million poultry animals, 2.5 million sheep and goats, and 44,000 cattle were not stunned. The number of slaughtered chickens, sheep, goats and cattle is more than is required for the Muslim and Jewish communities to consume.

The British Veterinary Association does not agree with me. It does not support calls to label meat as halal or kosher compulsorily because, in its view, that would not help consumers. As we have mentioned, 80% of halal slaughter is pre-stunned and the hindquarters of animals killed by the non-stun shechita method are not regarded as kosher and are therefore unlabelled.

In a November 2014 debate in this Chamber that I had the privilege to chair, the Minister said that

“from the EU perspective, ‘stunned’ has a clear legal definition in the legislation, and it is simply that an animal is rendered insensible to pain almost immediately.”

He also said that it was

“a clear definition and the scientific evidence does not support the argument that a cut without prior stunning achieves that.”—[Official Report, 4 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 169WH.]

I understand that that goes directly against the shechita understanding, in that a cut to the throat stuns, kills and exsanguinates all in one go, so there is clearly a different view, and that circle needs to be squared. The shechita authorities in this country need to make a more powerful case to Her Majesty’s Government if they want their view to prevail.