Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Alan Meale
Main Page: Alan Meale (Labour - Mansfield)Department Debates - View all Alan Meale's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)
Alan Meale Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hollobone
I will be happy to give way to all hon. Members, but I want to finish this point. If someone of Jewish faith wants to buy shechita products and products are labelled as such, that is helpful information. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said, more meat is being slaughtered by non-stun methods in this country than is required by the Muslim and Jewish communities, and that is of great concern to those members of our society who are neither Muslim nor Jewish. There are three experienced and distinguished Members whom I will happily give way to, the first being the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir Alan Meale).
Sir Alan Meale (Mansfield) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his very good approach to this issue. To reiterate, the point he has been trying to make is that this debate is not about religions, but about the non-stunning of animals for slaughter. As he pointed out, one of the reasons why we need labelling is to show the scale of this in Britain today—at least 4 million to 5 million beasts. That is before we get to the question of poultry: 900 million such birds are slaughtered in the UK every year, 90 million without any stunning whatsoever. This is a big issue, but it is not about differences with religions or anything else; it is about stunning and non-stunning.
Mr Hollobone
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. The wording of the e-petition refers to stunning versus non-stunning, but we cannot have a complete debate about this subject unless we tackle the religious dimension because that is the elephant in the room. I have been led down that path in the first few minutes of the debate because that is the understandable concern of Muslim and Jewish communities. He is correct that the wording of the e-petition and the purpose of the debate is about stunned versus non-stunned, but we soon come on to other issues.