Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Havard. I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this important debate. As we have heard, it has attracted a great amount of attention. The e-petition on which the debate is based has attracted, according to my iPhone, more than 116,000 signatories. On the other hand, the other petition, which is aimed at protecting religious slaughter, has attracted more than 124,000 signatories. This issue clearly attracts a great deal of interest and arouses a great deal of passion, and it is a credit to Members of this House that the debate is being conducted in such a calm and rational manner.

We must not be under any illusions. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) pointed out, any form of animal slaughter is a distressing business and all rational people, whatever their beliefs, would wish to do all they can to minimise, if not obviate altogether, any suffering caused to another sentient creature. In that regard, the scientific evidence is clear: stunning minimises the distress caused to the animal before and at the time of slaughter. The Dialrel report of 2010, for example, stated:

“It can be stated with high probability that animals feel pain during and after the throat cut without prior stunning.”

It also found that in the case of stunned slaughter, the hazards of restraint stress and injury were low, as were pain and suffering during the cut and immediately afterwards, while in the case of slaughter without stunning, those hazards were considered to be high. On purely scientific grounds, therefore, it seems clear that the case for stunned slaughter is strong.

It is with good reason, therefore, that European law and United Kingdom law require that animals should be stunned before slaughter, but as we have heard, the relevant EU directive permits member states to apply a derogation to permit non-stunned slaughter for religious purposes. Out of understandable consideration for religious beliefs, the UK and certain other member states have decided to apply the derogation, but it is clear, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) pointed out in his excellent opening remarks, that there is no uniformity in how that derogation has been applied. In some countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, non-stunned slaughter is not permitted. In others, such as Austria, Estonia, Finland and Slovakia, post-incision stunning is required if the animal has not been previously stunned. That is the halfway house my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire mentioned.

Interestingly and importantly—this was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering—in Germany, where the derogation has been applied, abattoirs have to prove the religious needs of the community concerned before a licence is granted. There may well be different approaches to the interpretation of the derogation by individual states, but all the member states I have mentioned have a great deal more clarity on how the derogation has been applied than the United Kingdom. Indeed, I specifically ask the Minister to address the lack of clarity in the application of the UK derogation.

The fact is that in the UK in 2013, some 15% of sheep and goats were not stunned before slaughter. That is some 2.4 million animals. Given that the Muslim and Jewish communities together comprise only 4% to 5% of the British population, and given that most halal meat —we have heard that the figure is 80%—is from stunned animals, it follows that a significant proportion of sheep and goat meat from non-stunned slaughter is being supplied otherwise than to the market for which it was intended. In other words, I would go so far as to say —this was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh)—that there seems to be a gross over-provision of non-stun slaughterhouses in this country, and I would be interested to hear what the Government intend to do about it. The extent of non-stunned slaughter in this country tends to go against the UK and EU legislation.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Surely the point that the right hon. Gentleman raises is about labelling, rather than the nature of the stunning.

[Mr Jones]

Not entirely. If more non-stunned slaughter is being carried out in this country than is required for religious purposes, there is an over-provision of non-stunned slaughter. The point that the hon. Lady makes on labelling is absolutely right, however. It is unacceptable that meat from non-stunned animals should be sold in this country without that being drawn to the attention of potential consumers. While we have heard suggestions today that the precise methods of non-stunned or stunned slaughter should be drawn to consumers’ attention, my view is that “stunned” or “non-stunned” is at least a clear and understandable starting point for labelling, and I believe it would be widely welcomed. We have already heard that simply to label meat as “halal” or “kosher” would be insufficient, for all the reasons that have already been advanced.

It emerged last year that the restaurant chain PizzaExpress had been serving halal-only chicken for some considerable time without drawing that to the attention of consumers. Labelling goes beyond what is displayed in the butcher’s shop or on the supermarket shelves. People in restaurants must have a clear choice as to what they are being offered, so labelling should extend to menus in restaurants.

We must ensure that only the appropriate level of non-stunned meat is allowed to be sold in this country. Similarly, it is essential that consumers know precisely what is being offered for sale before they buy it and put it on their families’ plates.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Offord]

I apologise to the former Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), because I have been corrected. I can only say that some of it may indeed go into the food chain, but not in the way that was anticipated—that is, the whole carcase of an animal. I think we are dancing on the head of a pin if we are saying that only some might go into the food chain.

What is humane slaughter? Some people say that slaughter is humane if an animal is protected from unavoidable excitement, pain or suffering, and that that requires the animal to be restrained and stunned, rendering it insensitive to pain before it is allowed to bleed to death. I do not accept that. I too have been to an abattoir, and I have also been around cattle when they have been killed in other places. When cattle enter any kind of contraption, including the back of a lorry, their stress levels increase.

In preparation for this debate, I read Jon Henley’s January 2009 article in The Guardian about the European pig industry. Some animals experience a lifetime of distress and suffering. The article documented pigs being kept on slatted concrete floors; pregnant sows being kept in cages so small that they could not move; piglets being castrated without pain relief; and tails routinely being docked to prevent animals from attacking each other. The food that enters the UK food chain from the EU is never discussed, which is peculiar. Muslim and Jewish people do not eat pork, but no one ever discusses such issues—we seem to be focusing on the same issues time and again. We should certainly spend time on other issues, such as the trimming of hens’ beaks; the mechanical mis-stunning of animals; the fly-grazing of horses; puppy farming; the culling of chicks on the basis of sex; and the cultivation of endangered turtle meat in places such as the Cayman Islands. None of that is ever covered.

It is worth highlighting that the petition has come about with great haste, in contrast with the British Veterinary Association petition, which has taken almost a year to come to fruition. I would like the new BVA chairman to stop fanning the hysteria around this issue and look at what veterinarians are doing to ensure animal welfare in slaughter houses.

I will not talk about shechita in particular, because it has already been covered, but I want to make a point about why some of the methods we have discussed have come about. The whole motivation in the large-scale factory abattoirs is to speed up the process and prevent the animal from thrashing around at the point of slaughter. That is why stunning occurs. Animal welfare organisations claim to have adopted the idea of stunning in an effort to raise levels of animal welfare, but the evidence in support of the animal welfare benefits is inconclusive. Mechanical methods frequently go wrong, leaving the animal in great, prolonged distress.

The last time we debated this issue, I mentioned the Food Standards Agency statistics on mis-stuns, which showed—and the Minister agreed—that an unrealistically low number of mis-stuns had been reported in the UK. In 2011, only six cattle were officially reported as having been mis-stunned. Following my questions, the Minister conceded that the statistics are not complete and may represent only a fraction of the actual number, and that the FSA will have to endeavour to improve its reporting methods.

I oppose stunning on the basis that mis-stuns cause animals more pain and distress and that it does not improve animal welfare. I am uneasy about the idea of ending non-stun slaughter coming forward so soon after the previous debate. I defend people’s right to eat meat and I defend my right not to eat meat; I also defend my constituents’ right to eat meat slaughtered in the way that they want it to be. Some people have said that these methods of slaughter are alien practices that are not part of British culture and not something we do in Britain. That starts to produce a divide between some groups and the so-called British public, and I am greatly concerned about that.

On the back of the Copenhagen and Paris attacks, many of my Jewish constituents worry that they are not wanted in this country. They, however, are more British than some of the people who have signed the e-petition; they, at the end of their synagogue services, always play “God Save the Queen” and sing along. We do not see that in other parts of society, more’s the pity. Similarly, when I visit my Muslim constituents at the mosque, they do not talk about the issues that some of the far right claim that they do; they are more concerned about parking outside the mosque on a Friday, so that they can get not only to the mosque but back to work afterwards.

[Ms Abbott]

My local Muslim community is concerned about this debate. Many do not feel that it is really about animal welfare; they worry that it is some sort of covert attack on them and their way of life. I am glad that so many of the speeches today have confirmed the importance—for some of us, at least—of not only animal welfare, obviously, but the right of communities to slaughter meat in the way they wish to under the law.

[Dr Offord]

The hon. Lady’s intervention illustrates that some of the concerns of people in different communities are not as portrayed by far-right organisations, but are very much about more normal things, including not only how they feed their children, but how they look after their children and live their daily lives.

In preparing my speech, I wondered which of the British values we are talking about are those to which slaughter practices are alien. I looked at the Department for Education’s advice on promoting fundamental British values in UK schools, which is clear:

“Schools should promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs”.

Surely the e-petition goes against that. Moreover, schools should

“further tolerance and harmony between different cultural traditions by enabling students to acquire an appreciation of and respect for their own and other cultures…encourage respect for other people...and…an understanding that the freedom to choose and hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law”.

The e-petition and today’s motion go against that. We are going down the route of asking people to choose the food that they eat on the basis of religion. Labelling already exists to indicate whether food is kosher, and the Muslim community may introduce similar arrangements as well. I feel aggrieved on behalf of my constituents that we are returning to the same issue. Many of them feel under attack as a result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I have listened with great interest to the contributions to the debate, in particular the contribution from the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice). I am here to speak not to the technicalities or detail of the issue, but about how it is seen by communities.

I represent Hackney, a traditional centre of the Jewish community, with the oldest synagogue in the country in Brenthouse road. We also have, from a little more recently, a large Muslim community. Both those communities are quite anxious about this debate. Both are very civic- minded. On Cazenove road in Stoke Newington we have a mosque; the Simon Marks school, which is a maintained Jewish school; and other Jewish schools. Whenever there have been pressures and tensions, my Jewish community and my Muslim community have come together—they are an example of how that can happen.

Both communities are concerned about the debate. They are concerned that it has come forward so quickly after we debated the issue in November. They are also concerned about what the debate really means. They are worried that the issue is not really one of animal welfare. People of all faiths and none are concerned about animal welfare. There is an issue about whether slaughterhouses are well run, and there is agreement that we must get them run properly, through using CCTV and stamping out abuses where they occur. Everyone is concerned about animal welfare, but my communities are concerned that although we hear little about other forms of animal use and abuse that could be dubbed cruel, some people keep wanting to go back to the issue of halal meat.

I was asked to speak in the debate to make it clear to people that communities want to work within the law and to have the highest standards of animal welfare, but that they worry that some people—not all, because I imagine most people who signed the petition did so in good faith—who are pursing the issue of halal meat are in some sense antagonistic to some of our communities of faith. When we are debating this issue, I urge hon. Members to avoid a narrative that makes it sound as if one is trying to say that communities of faith are backward or mediaeval, or unnecessarily cruel to animals. Let us try to restrict the debate to practical measures to achieve the safest and most humane methods of animal slaughter.

There is real concern in communities. They will not read the details of some of the speeches made today, but they hear people going back once more to the issue of halal meat and wonder what it is a vehicle for. I do not believe that there is necessarily a contradiction between religious observance and treating animals in a humane way, and would not want anyone to feel that their methods of religious observance are under threat. I was glad to hear from the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) that the Prime Minister himself has given an undertaking that halal slaughter and shechita slaughter are safe in principle. That will be reassuring to the people I represent and to Jewish and Muslim faith communities up and down the country.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I am not sure. I will have to check those particular figures. We know, for instance, that around 73% of all halal meat slaughtered is already stunned before it is slaughtered, and as many hon. Members pointed out, the amount of kosher meat on the market is a very small proportion. However, this is an interesting area, and it is something that I have looked at. I do not think that it gets away from the broader dilemma of the debate, but nevertheless, it is worthy of further consideration.

In the Netherlands, all animals must be stunned if they have not lost consciousness within 40 seconds of the cut. In France, there must be a post-cut stun if cattle are still conscious after 90 seconds. Other countries—notably Finland, Austria, Estonia and Slovakia—go further in requiring immediate post-cut stunning, whereas Denmark requires post-cut stunning in bovines only.

Further afield, as several hon. Members have pointed out, under Australian law, 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 post-cut stunning is still a requirement for those animals.

As we have plenty of time, I want to move on to other points that hon. Members have raised. Having discussed this issue with my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), who was one of my predecessors in this role, I know that this is something he has looked at. I can tell him that I have looked at it in equal detail since and that finding a consensus among the various parties concerned is no easier than it ever was. However, I want to pick up on a few issues that he highlighted.

My right hon. Friend described a situation in an abattoir in which several sheep were in a V restrainer conveyor simultaneously. That would be a breach of the existing regulations. There should never be more than one sheep in a sheep restrainer for the purposes of religious slaughter, because, as I have pointed out, the requirement is very clear that they cannot go into the slaughter pen—in this case, the V restrainer—until they are ready to be slaughtered. That is very important, because sheep have a natural tendency to want to flock, and putting them in a restrainer where they are held firm, while there are the standstill times and other sheep taking 15 or 20 seconds ahead of them, is not right. That is a breach of the existing regulations.

My right hon. Friend raised valid points on the time to unconsciousness. I remember well him describing to me seeing cattle take up to six minutes to lose consciousness. I hear various ranges for the time to loss of consciousness. There is a consensus that chickens are normally unconscious within 15 to 20 seconds. Likewise, I am told that 10 to 15 seconds is typical in the case of sheep, as he pointed out, and sometimes it is a little longer. However, when it comes to cattle, it is clear that there can be quite wide variances. He says that he witnessed cattle taking between four and six minutes to lose consciousness. I have discussed the matter with our veterinary advisers, some of whom have worked as OVs in abattoirs, and they tell me that it is more typical that, after around 40 seconds, the animal will collapse and go off its legs, and be supported by the restraining pen, and that it will typically then lose consciousness after 1 minute 20 seconds. That is still quite a lot of time, but it is why France has a cut-off point of 1 minute 30 seconds, after which a post-cut stun is required. At the other extreme, I have met former staff of the FSA who have told me that they have seen shechita abattoirs do this particularly effectively, with the animal collapsing within 10 seconds.

It is also clear that in many of these abattoirs, both halal and shechita—the best ones—where anything goes wrong, they are in quickly with the bolt gun to put the animal out of any pain. That is why I want again to talk about the Animal Welfare Act 2006, under which there is a requirement on an abattoir operator not to cause any unnecessary suffering to an animal. Where something goes wrong—where, for example, it takes up to five or six minutes for the animal to lose consciousness—there is a clear rationale for an official veterinarian to intervene earlier to say that something had gone wrong and that, as required under the regulations, the animal should be dispatched with a bolt gun.

Further to the fact that I have never been able to get a clear answer on exactly how long it takes for bovines in particular to lose consciousness, some months ago I asked our deputy chief veterinary officer to conduct a piece of work with the FSA to look at the matter afresh and see whether we can, without changing any laws, ensure that we have consistent application of the existing laws and consistent understanding of when it is appropriate for an OV to require that post-cut shot to be taken.

Let me move on to other points. Various hon. Members questioned the science of whether it is better for the welfare of the animals for them to be stunned prior to slaughter. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) made the good point, which I will concede, that at the time when halal and kosher were designed, they were very much about respect for the animal and sparing it any unnecessary pain. The genesis of both halal and kosher was about animal welfare, albeit that was some time ago.

I also completely accept that there can be good and bad abattoirs. It may be that conventional abattoirs would also mistreat the animals. I completely recognise the point that there are big differences. The only thing that I would say—this is where there is strong cross-party consensus—is that we have to look at the scientific evidence that we have, and the argument that says that the cut itself is equivalent to a stun is not borne out by the scientific evidence. As the shadow Minister pointed out, we had in 2003 the Farm Animal Welfare Committee report, which concluded that non-stun slaughter could cause distress and suffering. In 2004, we had the European Food Safety Authority report, which also concluded that it was preferable to have stunning of all animals. In 2009, the EU DIALREL report reached the same conclusion. It looked at neurological surveys of animals that were being slaughtered in order to establish scientifically whether they were experiencing pain. More recently, work in New Zealand has confirmed the same. It is therefore important that we recognise the basis on which the exemption exists. It is not because we think that somehow religious slaughter, be it halal or shechita, is a more humane way to slaughter animals than what mainstream abattoirs do today. It is because we respect the religious rights of those communities and we have accommodated them in the long-standing derogations that we have in place.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) raised the issue of CCTV, on which we have recently had a report from the Farm Animal Welfare Committee. It stops short of saying that there should be compulsory use of CCTV in slaughterhouses. We should recognise that the place in her constituency about which concerns were raised did have CCTV, so it is no panacea on its own. However, the FAWC report does conclude that many advantages come with CCTV. It can also help business managers to manage their operation. For instance, it can reveal lameness in sheep in the lairage pens that would not otherwise be detected. If used correctly, CCTV can be a very useful tool to help business managers to ensure that they are compliant with the regulation and to manage their business operations.

My hon. Friend also mentioned enforcement. I will come to that at the end. Labelling was the other issue that a number of hon. Members raised, and I want to deal with that. There is a European Commission working group. The shadow Minister asked about the timing of the report. It is one of those EU reports that has been delayed and delayed. We initially expected it last summer, then we expected it in the new year, and the latest update that I have had is that it is still some months away, which I think reflects the fact that this is a difficult issue to get right.

Let me give some general pointers. First, there is a very clear legal definition, both in our own law and in European law, of what stunned means for the purposes of abattoirs. It is rendering an animal insensitive to pain instantly or almost instantly, so I think that we can be clear that we could have “Stunned” or “Unstunned” as a form of labelling. My right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire made a very good point about the inability to enforce that sometimes. It would not be easy and it would not necessarily protect all those people who were buying their food from catering establishments, either. There are difficulties in labelling things just as “Halal” or “Kosher”. As a number of hon. Members pointed out, not all parts of the carcase are deemed kosher, even though the animal may have been slaughtered by kosher methods, and there is no single, uniform interpretation of what halal means. Different imams have different interpretations of the rules. We therefore await the report from the European Commission. I have heard it said that there could be labelling that just said “Unstunned” if the animal had not been stunned, but again this, like other issues, is not easy.

[Ms Abbott]

I am always gripped by discussions about the European Commission, but will the Minister comment on the point that concerns my constituents, which is that for some of the people involved in the push against halal and shechita, animal welfare is merely a flag of convenience? That is what concerns my constituents. They are very happy to make slaughter safer and more humane, but they are worried about the motivation of some of the people who are pushing this issue and who keep coming back to it.

[George Eustice]

I know that the hon. Lady made that point previously. I do not think that there has been anything in the debate today to suggest that that is the case among hon. Members taking part in it, and indeed the motion itself makes it absolutely clear that it is looking just at the animal welfare issue, so I am not sure that we should go down that route.

In conclusion, as my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) pointed out, the Government have no plans at all to ban religious slaughter. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that there is no intention to ban religious slaughter. However, everyone agrees that we need good enforcement of our existing legislation.