Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

Lee Scott Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) on his speech, which was moving and hugely well informed. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on his part in this debate.

I am afraid that I do not have such experience or erudition to add to the debate, but I will make one or two points. I am Jewish. I was not brought up to eat kosher meat, and I am not agricultural. I have visited slaughterhouses on two occasions, which I will mention in a minute. I make these comments entirely because of what I have learned from speaking to my constituents—both those who are religious and those who simply follow the traditions—after debates on the subject in this House.

Perhaps I should mention that I have received a petition from nearly 2,000 members of the Muslim community in Watford, suitably supported by members of the Jewish community, who were rather fewer in number because there are rather fewer Jewish people in Watford than Muslims. It came about as a result of comments by the new president of the British Veterinary Association that appeared in The Times.

I took the petition to the Prime Minister, who seemed clear on the Government’s view, although of course the Minister will say what he has to say. The Prime Minister said that he was “delighted to support” my campaign in Watford, and that he was

“very happy to confirm that while I am Prime Minister of this country”,

both halal and kosher killing are

“safe in Britain”.

That is a clear view from the Government. If I may speak for the Opposition—I have never had the arrogance to do so before, but I think that I am right in saying this—I imagine their official view to be much the same.

I have visited two abattoirs in my life, one using conventional slaughter and the other religious slaughter. I did not visit them as a Member of Parliament, and again, I cannot compare my visits and level of observation to those of my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire. I must say that I did not see a material difference between the death of the animal in the conventional abattoir, which was stunned, and the religious slaughter, which was done without stunning. I can say without discrimination that I was absolutely put off eating meat for some time by both of them—I am not a vegetarian, but I could see an argument for it —but I cannot and would not say that I noticed any material difference in the suffering of the animals in either case.

Given that it is one of our great beliefs in this country that people’s religious traditions and views should be upheld, and that the issue is important to religious Muslims and religious Jewish people, I believe that it is the Government’s job to stipulate standards of cleanliness and to deal with other more modern issues. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) mentioned, religious texts can be interpreted in a modern way, which I am sure must include modern versions of safety and cleanliness, but I cannot accept that in today’s society, religious traditions held with such belief by people in this country could be declared illegal by the Government. I will do everything in my power, modest though that power may be, to reject anything of the sort.

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend that people’s freedom to practise religion, and to eat meat produced as they feel it should be produced, is vital. Does he agree that this is really a matter of protecting animals? A bad abattoir is a bad abattoir, whatever process it might carry out. That is what we should stamp out: bad abattoirs, not the method by which the animals are slaughtered.