Animal Welfare: Methods of Slaughter

Lord De Mauley Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord De Mauley) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Trees, for securing a debate on this very important issue, and I thank all noble Lords for concisely making some really important and informative points on all sides of the argument.

This is a subject in which I am intensely interested. Indeed, I should start by saying that we are completely committed to improving standards of animal welfare, including welfare at slaughter. I should highlight that my response on behalf of the Government applies only to England. The devolved authorities are responsible for their own animal welfare policy.

In 2012, in England, 764 million poultry, 8.4 million sheep, 8.1 million pigs and 1.4 million cattle were slaughtered. Given the sheer numbers involved, it is right that we take the welfare of animals at slaughter very seriously. The public rightly expect the Government to ensure that appropriate welfare measures are in place. In late 2012, we consulted on the best way to implement the new EU Regulation 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing.

After careful consideration of responses, we decided to retain all existing national rules protecting the welfare of animals at killing, including those on religious slaughter, where they provided greater protection than the EU regulation. We will bring forward new secondary legislation soon to consolidate these national rules with the new requirements under the EU regulation. In coming to that decision, the Government assessed the key factors—legal, ethical and religious—raised in this debate. In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, I anticipate laying the regulations in April.

As regards the legal factors, Council Regulation 1099/2009 provides for the protection of animals at the time of slaughter and came into effect on 1 January last year. It aims to ensure that animals are spared any avoidable pain, distress or suffering at the time of slaughter and it therefore requires that animals are stunned before they are killed. The only exception, as this debate has widely covered, is where animals are slaughtered according to religious rites.

The EU regulation also requires religious slaughter to take place only in an approved slaughterhouse and it allows member states to introduce additional national rules for religious slaughter. It is on this basis that we will retain our existing national rules on religious slaughter in the new domestic regulations and provide more extensive welfare protection to animals slaughtered in accordance with religious rites than that provided by the EU regulation.

Our existing national rules provide greater protection than those contained in the EU regulation in relation to, for example, cattle restraints, the method of killing and the handling of animals. We will keep our rule on “standstill time”, which means that animals must not be moved after the neck is cut until they are unconscious, and in any event not before a minimum period depending on the species.

It is worth saying that our stricter national rules take into account human rights legislation, including Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to freedom of religion and the freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs, and Article 14, prohibiting discrimination on grounds of race or religion.

The consumption of meat is a matter of personal choice. Those who choose to eat meat expect animals to be treated humanely when they are slaughtered. This is reflected in both EU and domestic legislation, which require that animals are spared any avoidable pain, distress or suffering both when they are handled and at the time of slaughter. As the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said, the Farm Animal Welfare Council’s 2003 report on the welfare of farmed animals at slaughter proposed that non-stun slaughter should be banned on the basis that it caused unnecessary suffering. That view needs to be balanced against the rights of the Jewish and Muslim communities to eat meat prepared in accordance with their religious beliefs. To insist on pre-stun slaughter would also effectively deny Jews and Muslims access to meat slaughtered in this country.

While the Government would prefer to see all animals stunned before slaughter, we respect the rights of Jewish and Muslim communities to eat meat prepared in accordance with their religious beliefs. It is worth noting that the term “religious slaughter” does not automatically mean that the animals are slaughtered without being stunned. As noble Lords have mentioned, some halal meat comes from animals that are stunned before slaughter. My noble friend Lady Fookes asked: why not require post-cut stunning? As we have seen, this is a very complex subject, but I understand that animals subject to post-cut stunning would no longer be acceptable to some religious communities.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, and my noble friend Lord Gold referred to mis-stuns of cattle in conventional slaughtering. All animals that are mis-stunned must be immediately re-stunned, and operators are required by law to check that stuns are effective. That process is checked by independent vets.

The noble Lords, Lord Trees, Lord Rooker and Lord Grantchester, and my noble friends Lady Fookes, Lady Parminter, Lord Sheikh and Lord Palmer all spoke about labelling. The Government are aware of concern about non-stunned meat being sold on to the general meat market. We agree with noble Lords who have made the point that consumers should have the information to make an informed choice. It has to be said that there are some practical difficulties in identifying the method of slaughter for all meat from the point of source to the point of consumption, so the European Commission, which is well aware of our view, has commissioned a study on the labelling of meat from non-stunned animals. We await the results of that study, which are due shortly. We will look carefully at what options are available for providing information to consumers in the light of the study, and I am sure that noble Lords will want to revert to this subject when we have those results.

We remain committed to improving the welfare of animals at slaughter and, as my noble friend Lady Fookes proposed, to a continuing dialogue with all those concerned, particularly on the issues raised in this debate.