Slaughterhouses: Animal Welfare

(asked on 29th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many reports of mis-cutting he received for each category of animal in each year since 2008.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 7th February 2020

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) can provide the recorded data from 2010 onwards detailing the number of instances of mis-cutting which have occurred in the main categories of animals, in FSA approved slaughter premises in England and Wales. Each instance relates to an event that has been categorised as a serious or critical non-compliance on the welfare reporting systems used at that time. These figures do not reflect the number of animals involved.

Year

Period

Poultry

Cattle

Pigs

Sheep and Goats

Total

2010

April 2010 to March 2011

181

0

0

0

181

2011

April 2011 to March 2012

154

0

0

0

154

2012

April 2012 to March 2013

180

0

0

0

180

2013

April 2013 to March 2014

88

0

0

0

88

2014

April 2014 to March 2015

93

0

0

0

93

2015

April 2015 to March 2016

96

0

0

0

96

2016

April 2016 to March 2017

42

0

0

0

42

2017

April 2017 to March 2018

43

0

0

0

43

2018

April 2018 to March 2019

31

0

0

0

31

2019

April 2019 to December 2019

25

0

0

3

28

Grand Total

933

0

0

3

936

As is evident in the data contained in the table the issue is almost exclusively related to poultry processing with an improving trend in recent years. This is due to improvements in business operator practices, technology and enforcement action being taken against operators who do not comply with the legal requirements.

Reticulating Splines