Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

Debate between James Gray and James Paice

Monday 23rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sir James Paice]

I am certainly not against labelling. As I said a few minutes ago, I have recommended and indeed driven forward initiatives to provide consumers with more information, and I am not averse to the idea of doing so in this context. I have grave doubts about how effective it would be, simply because I fear that it would be difficult to enforce.

My final comment relates to training. I discussed the issue of mis-stunning, and I am sure that all of us have often heard different groups say that Jewish slaughtermen are far more effectively trained than Muslim slaughtermen. I have heard all sorts of accusations about some halal slaughtermen using blunt knives to saw away at necks and so on. All that I can say—maybe this is obvious—is that the examples that I witnessed in both this country and New Zealand do not sustain that argument. As far as I could tell—I am not a complete layman; I have been to many abattoirs in my lifetime—the animals were cut as quickly as possible with very sharp weapons, and the training was perfect. Whatever system of slaughter is used—pre-cut stun, post-cut stun or anything else—we cannot accept anything less than highly skilled operators. I certainly believe that that is a matter for enforcement, whatever else might be decided.

I do not know whether I shall speak again in this place during the next five weeks, but if this is my last speech, I hope that it is recognised as a seriously intentioned argument for moving forward in the interests of animal welfare and nothing else. I strongly urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider the post-cut stun—it is a compromise—as a way of effectively reducing unwanted and unnecessary suffering.

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying that if that was his last speech—we all hope that it was not—it was an extremely fine contribution at the end of a long and distinguished career.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Gray and James Paice

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

If a Minister stands at the Dispatch Box and says that something will happen very shortly, it means precisely that. It certainly means before the House rises for Easter.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

All of us abhor the use of wild dogs for criminal purposes, but does the Minister not agree that the law of unintended consequences may apply here, in that perfectly reasonable, sensible, law-abiding dog owners could be scooped up in complex, bureaucratic arrangements while criminals continue to use their dogs for illegal purposes?

[Mr Paice]

I fully understand my hon. Friend’s concern, but I must point out to him that a very large proportion of dogs have already been microchipped on a voluntary basis by responsible owners. We are now trying to draw in that sector of the dog-owning community that has not done that. We are certainly not planning to create a bureaucratic scheme, but he will have to wait for the full announcement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Gray and James Paice

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. We are not blindly ignoring vaccination, which we have always said has a role to play. Indeed, it is being carried out at the moment in some parts of the country. The simple fact, as we have published, is that our veterinary advice states that we can have a greater and swifter impact on bovine TB through a culling policy than through vaccination. With regard to what he called the trials that I cancelled, they were not trials of the vaccine, but deployment projects, and we decided that we could achieve all that we needed in one project, rather than wasting another £6 million on the others.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Farmers across North Wiltshire are being ruined by TB in cattle and very much welcome the recent announcement that the Government will press ahead with a limited cull. Does the Minister agree that selected tests so far have shown a 27% reduction in bovine TB and that, although there was perturbation, as they call it, around the edge of the trial area, it is shown to have been reduced in subsequent years?

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend is perfectly correct. The results of the Krebs trials, which were conducted by the independent scientific group on cattle TB, demonstrated that after nine years—long after the end of the trials themselves—there was a reduction of 27%, and even 29%, in the cull zone, which was slightly offset by a temporary increase in the peripheral area. What matters, however, are the measures that are taken to reduce that increase, which is why we are now saying that any group or farmer must now put forward their own ideas about how they will minimise this perturbation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Gray and James Paice

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

T4. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) and I were campaigning long and hard against the introduction of compulsory horse passports—identification cards for horses—legal advice to DEFRA was that Ministers had three options. The first was to seek to extend the EU derogation on the subject for a further 10 years, the second was to bring in a minimal regime so that horses at abattoirs would have to have some kind of documentation, and the third was an all-singing, all-dancing, bells and whistles option, requiring every zebra, donkey, horse and pony in the land to have an ID card. Will the Minister re-examine that legal advice from 2005 to work out whether it might be possible to make horse ID cards voluntary rather than compulsory?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I am very much aware of my hon. Friend’s passion for this issue, some of which I share. The advice I have received is that the decision that the previous Government unsurprisingly made to develop the most bureaucratic and regulatory option is irreversible, but I am more than happy to look at it again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Gray and James Paice

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I cannot pre-empt the announcements that the Home Office will make shortly. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the plan is not for massive additional public expenditure in dealing with this issue. He will have to await the proposals that will be published shortly.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

We are all concerned about dangerous dogs—of course we are—and about the antisocial element among ordinary dogs. None the less, does the Minister agree that there is a risk that perfectly normal dogs that bark might suddenly find themselves captured in all-encompassing anti-dog regulations? Will he be cautious in addressing the problems raised by the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker)?

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend is right to urge caution. There are two slightly different perceptions. One is of the dogs that people use as fashion accessories, such as the pit bull-type dogs used by the louts that we sometimes see walking about the streets. However, the tragedies often involve household pets that, for some reason, have gone wrong. We have to bear that in mind and look at the whole picture.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Gray and James Paice

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The sad reality is that chickens will feather-peck and adopt cannibalism in any circumstances, including in large free-range facilities. The challenge with which we have to wrestle is whether or not debeaking is a bigger or lesser welfare issue than the consequences of not debeaking. The Government want to see an end to debeaking and we will achieve that, but we have to ensure that we do not make the situation worse in the process.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

As the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) hinted, we have some of the highest farm animal welfare standards in the world. Does the Minister agree that unnaturally increasing those would have two results? First, we would import food from places with far lower standards than we have here, and secondly, that would put perfectly good farmers in this country out of business.

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend is entirely right, and we have learned the lesson. I accept that it was a Conservative Government who banned stalls and tethers in the pig industry, and we saw over the following 10 years a halving of the domestic pig industry while we continued to import pigmeat produced under the very systems that we had banned. That is why, alongside our determination to raise animal welfare standards in this country, we must also try to raise them at least across Europe.