Fish Farming: Animal Welfare

(asked on 23rd May 2022) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Animal Welfare Committee is expected to update its previous Fish Welfare at Slaughter opinion; and what assessment he has made of potential differences in regulation regarding the slaughter of fish and other aquatic animals compared to that of terrestrial farm animals.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 26th May 2022

As part of the Government’s Action Plan for Animal Welfare, we are currently considering a number of improvements that could be made to the welfare of farmed fish at the time of killing and have asked the Animal Welfare Committee to update its 2014 Opinion on the welfare of farmed fish at the time of killing this year. Their advice is expected this autumn.

No assessment has been made of the differences in regulation regarding the slaughter of fish and other aquatic animals and terrestrial farmed animals.

Regulation 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing requires that farmed fish are spared avoidable pain, distress or suffering during their killing and related operations but does not include any further requirements. The Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015 makes it an offence for any person engaged in the restraint, stunning or killing of an invertebrate to cause avoidable pain, distress or suffering.

The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 received Royal Assent on 28 April and provides legal recognition that animals with a backbone (vertebrates), decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs are sentient beings. This means the Animal Sentience Committee will be able to consider how individual central government policy decision making takes account of the welfare of these creatures and can publish reports on this.

Reticulating Splines