Food Labelling (Halal and Kosher Meat)

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I oppose the Bill. I declare an interest. I am an orthodox Jew and I was brought up in a household where only kosher meat was eaten. None of these issues was raised throughout my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood.

I do not believe for a moment that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has the tiniest anti-Semitic feeling in him and I am sure that he is not proposing the Bill for that reason. However, large numbers of Jews would be very greatly distressed if what he proposes were to become law. I speak not only about Jews, but Muslims. I represent many thousands of Muslims in my constituency—good, decent, law-abiding people who, because of their religious allegiance, will eat only halal meat. I do not see why Jews and Muslims alone should be compelled by law to have the meat they eat labelled in a way that no other meat is labelled.

If the hon. Gentleman’s proposed Bill had a wider remit—for example, if it said that all chickens had to be labelled in a certain way if the birds had been battery hens—or if he had proposed that meat had to be labelled in a certain way if the animals had been kept in dreadful conditions before being killed, and killed in an extremely brutal way, as shown in the documentary narrated by Sir Paul McCartney, which revealed the astonishing, abominable and utterly dreadful conditions in which large numbers of animals, whether cows, pigs or whatever, are kept, I would at least regard him as consistent. But he is not being consistent. He has picked on two small minorities who share the way in which the meat they eat is killed. Indeed, when Muslims first came to Manchester and Leeds and wanted their animals killed in a halal way, they went to Jewish slaughter houses in order to do so.

During my whole upbringing, I ate only kosher meat. I am afraid that I did not keep to that in later years, but I still will not eat pigmeat of any kind because my mother and father brought me up in such a way that that meat is what we call “trayf” in Yiddish, and I will not eat trayf food. I think that the hon. Gentleman is picking out two small minority religions that have a special way in which the meat they eat is killed and asking that they, and they alone, have their meat labelled.

I say this as someone who has spoken on animal welfare in this House for many years. I was the leading person who got the hunting ban passed, because of my understanding of the procedures of this House—I say that with some vanity, but it is a fact. I have been involved in the campaign to ban the keeping of wild animals in circuses, something on which I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman as having been hyperactive.

The proposed Bill would have profound implications for religious feelings, and I would be letting my faith and my family down, alongside many good, decent, fine and religious Muslims in my constituency, if I did not state my total opposition to it. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman withdraw the motion so that the House does not even have to vote on it.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his observations on faith, family, eating habits and the legislative record; the House is indebted to him.

Question put (Standing Order No. 23).