Mandatory Use of Closed Circuit Television in Slaughterhouses (England) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Trees

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome these regulations, which, as other noble Lords have said, are hugely important. My one question is this: why has it taken so long? That is a rhetorical question, not a criticism of the Government, whom I congratulate.

We live in a country that is hugely surveilled. I understand that there is one CCTV camera for every 13 of us. By my calculations, that amounts to 5 million CCTV cameras throughout the country. Every day we see how important they are in investigating and solving all sorts of wrongdoing, yet we have failed to get them introduced into every corner of every abattoir. It is great that 95% of animals are under surveillance but surely it is the other 5% that we should worry about because, if malpractice is likely to happen, it will surely happen in the places where people do not volunteer to have surveillance.

Therefore, this measure is very important in ensuring compliance with the rigorous regulations that, rightly, are in place to ensure the welfare of animals in our abattoirs through the inspection of their health and well-being, both in the lairages where animals are often kept overnight or for 12 hours and more, and then throughout the killing process. Your Lordships may not have been in an abattoir—they are not very nice places—but the killing lines often move very fast and it is very difficult for a veterinarian to be everywhere at once. With things moving so fast, things can happen that can go unseen. I would suggest, and it has been mentioned, that CCTV is also useful to aid training and management by those who own the abattoirs. So there are two benefits, but the benefit to animal welfare is obviously the major one.

Stunning and non-stun has come up. I do not want to labour the point, but there are breaches of regulations that can happen in both situations. These rules will be extremely important in helping us to ensure that the regulations in both types of killing process are observed. There are some particularly stringent regulations pertaining to non-stun such as standstill times after the neck cut, which must be 30 seconds in the case of cattle beasts and 20 seconds in the case of sheep. That is a long time to hold a killing line, but it is essential for the welfare of the animals, if we are to permit non-stun, that those standstill times are honoured. CCTV will help us to ensure that that is happening because it is sometimes difficult to supervise.

I absolutely share the noble Baroness’s concerns about the loss of our abattoirs. There is very much an animal welfare issue in terms of the distance animals have to go between the point of rearing and the point of slaughter. That distance should be minimised as much as possible. We are all therefore keen to ensure the financial sustainability of abattoirs, big and small, but I remain to be convinced that these costs would be the last straw. If they are critical, we must find other ways in which to address that problem, not simply give up on enforcing these regulations. As has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, the technical costs of cameras these days are incredibly low; people are putting these sorts of cameras in birds’ nest boxes, and so on. I understand that the observation of the stored material, to which the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, referred, is going to be done by the official veterinarians of the Food Standards Agency who are already employed. I would have thought that they would incorporate that observation as part of their working day.

In conclusion, this is a long overdue and extremely welcome innovation that we should all endorse.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I understand why Her Majesty's Government are following this course of action and I am aware of some fairly horrible cases, which means that CCTV is prima facie desirable in slaughterhouses. We are all on the same side in trying to ensure the least suffering for animals. As the noble Lord, Lord Trees, has just said, there is nothing nice about slaughterhouses or what animals have to go through. I take the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours—he made a number of strong points. But I would just point out that not so long ago almost every rural town of a reasonable size had a slaughterhouse. From figures produced by my noble friend the Minister for my noble friend Lady Byford I can say that in 2001, Great Britain had 495 slaughterhouses. By last year that number had fallen to 320, which is a drop of 35%. The adverse effect on the welfare of animals which have to travel long distances to slaughter have been well aired. Those slaughterhouses closed down because they became commercially unviable. In many cases, it does not take much additional cost to tip any commercial operation from the black into the red. I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. CCTV of the standard required is not inexpensive. You cannot just buy it on eBay. The system needs to be robust, built to last, operated in quite demanding circumstances and positioned carefully, out of reach of tampering and so on. In addition, as my noble friend Lord Cathcart said, it has to be watched, which costs money. I would therefore like to hear from the Minister what research has been done into how many of the remaining 320 slaughterhouses are on the margin of commercial viability. The crunch point for me is whether they will be tipped over the edge.

We all want a better outcome and less suffering for animals. I just hope that the Government have done enough homework to ensure that animals will not end up having to travel much further in what are often, to say the least, uncomfortable conditions, and perhaps even to countries with less rigorous rules than our own.