Non-stun Slaughter of Animals

Josh Newbury Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I welcome the opportunity to debate this subject, so I, too, thank the petition author, Mr Osborne, and the signatories for enabling us to do that.

I declare that I am personally against non-stun slaughter. I am not religious, and I would never knowingly buy products from animals that had not been stunned before slaughter. Some 301 of my constituents signed this petition to ban the non-stun slaughter of animals. That is the second highest number of signatories from any constituency across the UK, so it is clear that people in Cannock Chase feel very strongly about this topic. I appreciate that many of my constituents will have signed the petition to voice their concerns about animal welfare—a topic that I am always keen to discuss. I hope that across the House, we can balance that valid question with respect for those for whom non-stun slaughter is part of religious observance.

I affirm that animal welfare is, and must remain, a core concern in the UK. We are rightly proud of our high standards, and it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that our animals are treated with dignity and suffer as little as possible in life and death. Just last week, I was in this room for a debate on animal welfare in farming, discussing low-welfare farming practices, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed), who is no longer in his place. I am glad to be in another debate with the Minister so soon.

Although the religious aspect of slaughter methods might make headlines, I have brought my passion for animal welfare to this House long before today, and I will continue to do so long after this debate is over. As representatives of the British people, parliamentarians must recognise that both the Jewish and Muslim faiths have deeply rooted religious practices around slaughter—kosher and halal—which are grounded in principles of respect, discipline and faithfulness to scripture.

In preparation for the debate, I spoke at length with a friend of mine who is a practising Muslim. He told me that in the Koran, cruelty towards animals is considered to be a sin. There are also several rules around Islamic slaughter, as other hon. Members have said. Animals must be well treated before being killed and they must not see other animals being killed. The knife must not be sharpened in the animal’s presence, and the blade must be free of blemishes so that it will not tear the wound.

The demonstration of life protocol is an industry-led initiative that provides assurance to Muslim communities that stunning is compatible with halal slaughter requirements while protecting the welfare of the animals involved. Because of that, already a significant proportion of halal meat comes from animals that were stunned before slaughter, as has been said. Last year, that was 88% of halal meat. There is widespread agreement in the Muslim community in Britain that stunning is compatible with halal slaughter principles as set out in the Koran. As has been pointed out, stunning is deemed incompatible with Jewish requirements, so exemptions for non-stun slaughter are particularly used for the production of kosher meat.

This debate is an opportunity for us to reflect on whether, as raised by the Chair of the Petitions Committee, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), the law should evolve once again. The British Veterinary Association shared a briefing note with Members about changing labelling requirements so that meat from animals that have not been stunned prior to death is clearly labelled, so that consumers can make informed choices. As the Minister knows, I am keenly interested in improving labelling for consumers, particularly welfare labelling, which would give a far broader perspective on welfare than simply “stun” or “non-stun”. I appreciate that we could end up crowding food packets with way too much information, but as part of the Department’s ongoing review of food labelling, I ask the Minister to consider the BVA’s proposals; perhaps he could comment on that.

The BVA also shared ideas on introducing a non-stun permit system to ensure that the number of animals slaughtered without prior stunning does not exceed demand. I imagine that others across the House will focus on those suggestions, so in the interests of timekeeping I will not dive any further into them, but I want to place them on the record as I feel that they are important for us to consider.

Through the National Farmers Union food and farming fellowship scheme, I recently had the opportunity to visit a beef farm owned by ABP Food Group in my home county of Staffordshire. We met abattoir managers who talked to us about how the industry is continuing to innovate and push for higher welfare standards during slaughter. For example, they are introducing new forms of lighting, which mimic the way that light falls in barns, to ensure that animals are as relaxed as possible. Although there are lingering examples of outdated and bad practices, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) rightly highlighted, I hope that innovations in modern abattoirs will ensure that they are consigned to history.

We also discussed non-stun slaughter at Bromstead farm. Contrary to what people might think, there are ways to minimise the suffering of animals being slaughtered without prior stunning. Many of the stunning methods that have been described in this debate are instantaneous, so I do not believe that it is correct to say that they always cause excruciating pain to animals.

Scientific evidence continues to develop, and discussions in faith communities about how animal welfare can be improved are growing. Examples of improvements include shortening transport times or increasing transparency in abattoirs. That brings me to the importance of the role of small and local abattoirs. They must be part of this conversation. Small abattoirs offer something that larger industrial systems often cannot: shorter journey times for animals, more human handling and the possibility for community oversight.

The long-term plight of abattoirs is not spoken about in this House frequently. In the 1970s, around 2,500 abattoirs were operating in the UK, but today that number has fallen to just 200. That collapse in capacity has left many farmers with no choice but to send their animals long distances for slaughter, which increases the animals’ stress and undermines efforts to maintain short, local supply chains from farm to fork. I know that is a concern for some religious communities.

The Food Standards Agency has been consulting on increasing fees and removing a discount scheme on the inspections. Concern has grown in the industry about the future of the current discount, which represents up to 90% of charges for some abattoirs, according to the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers, which states that 45% of small and medium-sized abattoirs could close without this discount. Our commitment to farming and our record £5 billion investment into the agricultural sector needs to support small local abattoirs. They are essential not just for animal welfare but for rural economies, food security and diversity in our food system.

If we are serious about welfare and about balancing our values and standards with religious traditions, we should support a system that allows more ethical, more local and more transparent slaughter. That includes investing in small abattoirs, supporting training for specialist staff, and encouraging respectful dialogue between religious and non-religious groups, vets, farmers and regulators. Our task is to hold all those principles together with seriousness and sensitivity.