Animal Slaughter (Religious Methods)

Louise Ellman Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing this debate. I particularly welcome his opening comments that the debate should be conducted calmly and transparently, as he did in the presentation of his case, and it is important that that approach is maintained. I want to draw attention to some issues relating to shechita, Jewish laws on slaughter methods. Muslims have similar concerns, but I will confine my remarks to Jewish methods of slaughter and kashrut.

My first point is that this issue is very important to the whole Jewish community. It recognises its rights as part of British society as well as enabling individual Jewish people who observe the laws of kashrut to eat meat and poultry. Any interference with their ability to do so would be a gross infringement of civil rights. The Jewish laws of kashrut are part of a wider concern for animal welfare. Shechita is carried out by trained, licensed experts. Animals are killed by a single cut to the throat in a prescribed way from a special surgically sharp knife that is regularly inspected. Blood flow to the brain is immediately cut off with consequential inability to feel pain and subsequent rapid death. There are too many other rules of kashrut to enumerate here, but it is important to point out that they are all related to enhancing animal welfare.

Criticism of Jewish methods of slaughter, of shechita, claims or often assumes that other methods of slaughter are more humane. Those other methods include stunning by penetrative bolt or by electrocution. They include chickens being shackled by their ankles and dipped into a weather bath and electrocuted, and pigs herded into a room and gassed. None of those methods are pleasant.

What are the facts about allegations of cruelty in Jewish methods of slaughter compared with other methods? It is important to recognise, as has happened in this debate, that mechanical stunning has a high failure rate. Many more animals suffer because of inadequate stunning than are killed altogether by shechita. The report of the EU Food Safety Authority stated that failure rates for penetrative captive bolt stunning may be as high as 6.6%—2 million cows. It also reported that failure for non-penetrative captive bolt stunning and electric stunning could be as high as 31%—10 million cows. In comparison, the total number of cattle killed by shechita in any one year is 20,000. It is clearly accepted, and has been by hon. Members this morning, that there are many cases of failed stunning and it is extremely important to register that. It is sometimes assumed that that is a superior method to shechita.

In addition to that report, a more recent one from Animal Aid, “The Humane Slaughter Myth”, recorded the results of filming in three random slaughterhouses in 2009. Among other things, it found pigs, sheep and calves inadequately stunned by electrocution and recounted horrific scenes of those animals trying to escape, howling and thrashing around. It reported injured animals who were then slaughtered and ewes watching their young killed. It is important to note that both practices are specifically prohibited under a range of intricate Jewish laws that prohibit cruelty to animals and make them not kosher and not able to be eaten by Jews observing kashrut.

[Roger Williams]

I thank the hon. Lady for her sensible and calm approach to this matter. One of our concerns when we took evidence was that not all animals killed by the shechita method were found to be of kosher standard or quality and had to go into the general meat trade. Can anything be done to ensure that only animals that will be suitable for kosher meat are killed by the shechita method?

[Mrs Ellman]

Some parts of animals are prohibited from being eaten by people who observe the laws of kashrut and they are often sold in other parts of the food chain. That is part of the system. I know that there are issues about labelling slaughtering methods. I do not think that labelling would be objected to in principle, but it should apply to all types of killing and all situations in which killing takes place.

[Neil Parish]

I am grateful for the calm way we are debating this matter. We found from the evidence presented to us that in some big slaughterhouses not all slaughtering is necessarily checked by the Jewish community and some animals go through the system and end up in the normal food chain without going through the shechita system. There is a way to tighten up on that. The issue involves not just parts of the animals but whole animals that go through the system and are not fully checked. We could do more about that.

[Mrs Ellman]

I accept that further steps could be taken, but my essential concern is about a preserving the rights of the Jewish community as part of British society to maintain its traditions and religious laws that are all designed to enhance animal welfare. I am greatly concerned about the often unstated assumption that stunning is more humane and that animals that are not killed according to Jewish laws do not suffer. The evidence simply does not substantiate that.

Shechita is humane. It is part of a body of Jewish laws designed to improve animal welfare and is vital to the Jewish community. The debate will continue and it is important that it does so calmly, recognising the rights of animals to the highest welfare standards and also recognising the rights of all communities within the United Kingdom.