Equine Slaughterhouses (CCTV)
Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Julian Knight(8 years ago)
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Liz Saville Roberts
Indeed, I understand that many larger-scale slaughterhouses already have CCTV installed externally; to all intents and purposes, including the internal installation as well would not be prohibitively expensive. I think that is an issue for smaller slaughterhouses, and that they need to be supported.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and congratulate her on securing this debate. She is being most generous in taking so many interventions. Does she think, as I do, that another flaw in the current arrangement is that in those slaughterhouses where there is CCTV, the owner has the option of not allowing the FSA to see the footage? In fact, not only is the CCTV voluntary, but access to the footage is voluntary.
Liz Saville Roberts
It would indeed seem that if CCTV were present, we should be making full use of it. This is another aspect—given that CCTV itself is not compulsory—that should be mandatory; there should be access to the footage gained through those means.
It is important to emphasise that although we are having this debate today, that does not in any way presume that there is poor treatment in the UK’s five equine slaughterhouses, all of which also take species other than horses. However, horse owners have not forgotten that incident from 2013. A Facebook survey carried out by World Horse Welfare in September provided some interesting insights. Around 90% of more than 900 horse owners who responded did not consider the abattoir as an option for their horse, but 40% agreed that horse slaughter should remain an option within the UK as the costs of euthanasia are so high. More than 70% said that they would not use a slaughterhouse for their own horses because they did not have confidence that their welfare would be protected through the process or that the horse would have a humane death.