Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to make an assessment of the potential merits of banning the use of electrical water bath systems for the stunning of poultry after the UK has left the European Union.

European Council Regulation (EC) No. 1099/2009 requires all animals to be stunned before slaughter using the methods and parameters listed in Annex 1 to the Regulation, which includes electrical waterbath stunning. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 will convert the existing body of EU animal welfare law into UK law.

According to a survey carried out by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in 2013, 71% of poultry in GB were stunned using a gas stunning system with 25% being electronically stunned. Defra and Welsh Government have asked the FSA to carry out an updated version of the survey for 2018. We hope to publish the results of the survey later in the year.

We are committed to reviewing the legislation on protecting animals at the time of killing before 2020 and considering the extent to which the objectives of the legislation have been met.