Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Eustice and David Jones

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

When it comes to public procurement, for a number of years, we have had an approach called the balanced scorecard, which means that it is not all about price and that our procurement authorities should also take into account quality and other factors, too.

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

The spring selling season will soon be upon us. Across the country, against the background of the coronavirus crisis, farmers will be concerned to establish whether they will be able to buy and sell their livestock. Can the Secretary of State give any reassurance to farmers as to the extent to which they will be able to use their local farmers auction markets?

Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

Debate between George Eustice and David Jones

Monday 23rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[George Eustice]

The food business operator—the operator of the abattoir—is legally required to ensure that those are followed, but I point out that an official veterinarian is present at every abattoir and it is their job to enforce them. I shall return to the issue of enforcement later.

In addition, the regulations require that before each animal is slaughtered, the knife must be checked to ensure it is sharp and undamaged, and that the cut must be a rapid and uninterrupted movement that cuts both carotid arteries and veins.

Other national rules concern the so-called standstill times for cattle, sheep and goats: following the neck cut, the animal cannot be moved, in the case of bovines, until it is unconscious and at least 30 seconds have passed, or, in the case of sheep and goats, until at least 20 seconds have passed. The standstill times aim to provide protection from avoidable pain, suffering and distress caused, for example, by unnecessary movement while the animal is still conscious.

Although there are no standstill rules as such for poultry, there are still a number of national rules that aim to minimise pain, suffering and distress. Following the neck cut, no further dressing procedure can be carried out on the bird until it is unconscious and at least two minutes have elapsed, in the case of turkeys and geese; for all other birds it is 90 seconds.

I set those regulations out in detail because it is important to recognise that there are special, strict requirements where religious slaughter is carried out. However, hon. Members should recognise another important point: none of the exemptions we have for religious slaughter exempt any operator from their obligations under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. It is the role of the official veterinarians in the abattoirs to decide when it may be necessary to go in, as required under the regulations, and use a bolt gun where something goes wrong. I shall return to that point later.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering pointed out, there are also differing requirements right across Europe, as provided for in the European regulations. In Germany, for example, abattoirs have to prove the religious needs and the number of animals to be slaughtered to satisfy the needs of the religious community concerned before being granted a licence. My hon. Friend asked whether we could look at that further, as did the shadow Minister. It is an interesting area and following this debate, given the apparent support from hon. Members, I would be willing to look at it. However, the existing standstill times are already a powerful disincentive for the mainstreaming of religious slaughter, because they make the process much slower. It is therefore not really in the interests of any abattoir to conduct religious slaughter in accordance with the regulations unless it is for a specific need.

[Mr David Jones]

Why are such a high proportion of sheep and goats being killed by the non-stun method? The figure is 15%, as we have heard, whereas the Jewish and Muslim population of this country accounts for only some 5% of the total population.

[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.