Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

Mike Freer Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

The debate has quite rightly focused on animal welfare. I have to say that those who believe in methods associated with religious slaughter are equally concerned with animal welfare. I am not Jewish, but, representing Finchley and Golders Green, I have taken a great deal of time to understand the religious traditions behind religious slaughter. Any rabbi or imam will say that the welfare of the animal is paramount. If the animal is stressed or in any way hurt or damaged, it cannot be slaughtered. It is also important to remember the long and proud tradition we have of protecting religious freedoms. I do not believe that the two are incompatible.

We are here once more, having debated the same issues in November. I apologise, but I want to repeat some points that I have made previously. I recognise that the debate has been prompted by 116,000 people signing a petition calling for non-stun slaughter to be banned, which I believe was started last April. However, 10 days ago, a counter-petition was started, which now has 124,000 signatures. My point is that the public are completely divided. There is not a common view.

Before we go on to the key animal welfare issues, I will touch on something that is a bit like the elephant in the room. A number of Members have alluded to the fact that our religious communities, whether the Muslim community or the Haredi community in Hackney, the Jewish community that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and I share in London, or the largest Jewish population in the UK, represented by a colleague from slightly further away, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), and our constituents, are concerned about the motives behind some of the debate—not all of it, but some of it.

I believe that the vast majority of people raising this issue are concerned with animal welfare, but that for some it is a flag of convenience. For instance, when Animal Aid aired the video on 3 February of the appalling behaviour of slaughtermen in a halal abattoir, there was quite rightly an outcry, but a week later, when a video was aired showing the same behaviour in a mainstream abattoir, there was not a peep. It is an interesting juxtaposition of people’s responses: for halal, there is outcry, but for non-halal, silence.

I have also had e-mails in the past saying:

“I don’t want my meat touched by a dirty man in a beard”

or

“I don’t want Muslim meat”—

whatever Muslim meat is. I have bought meat in halal shops, in kosher shops and in Sainsbury’s, and frankly I cannot tell the difference, so I am still trying to get my head around how Muslim meat or kosher meat is meant to be so different that people do not want it because it is blessed or is in some way religious meat. Sadly, it shows that perhaps ignorance, racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism lurk behind some of the respectable arguments.

[Mike Gapes]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point. I will add my voice to his. Constituents in Ilford have written to me in exactly those terms this week, saying that there is a rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. I have had almost identical words from Jewish constituents and from Muslim constituents. It is not just in his part of London but in east London, which has large Jewish and Muslim communities that go back many decades—indeed, the Jewish community goes back centuries.

[Mike Freer]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Religious communities feel that they are under threat and that they are being made to feel unwelcome. However, I should put the issue in context: some, but not all, and certainly not the majority, are using animal welfare as a flag of convenience. That is why we must ensure that we anchor our arguments in animal welfare.

In that respect, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice)—I took members of Shechita UK to see him when he was a Minister—has given this issue a huge amount of thought, not only because of his farming background, but because of his former ministerial position. I do not always share his views, but they come from a very valid point of view, and I will seek advice on the point he raised about post cut stunning, because it is a fair one and it needs to be explored—I am not a Talmudic scholar, although I sometimes feel I am rapidly becoming one. I am sure someone will have an answer.

Before I looked at this issue, I thought I would go to see these things for myself, and I am surprised to find that a number of colleagues have also been to an abattoir. I went to see what goes on, and I have to say it is not a pleasant experience. Anyone who goes to an abattoir either comes back firmly a vegan or simply has to deal with the fact that there is no such thing as a good death for a cow. I certainly do not have the experience of my right hon. Friend or the experts. I saw these things from a layman’s point of view, like my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington).

I have seen the shochetim operate, and I have seen the bolt through the head, and, to put it bluntly, there is no such thing as a warm, cuddly abattoir. The cow or the lamb is being slaughtered: they either get a quick slice across the neck or they get a bolt fired at pressure through their skull—there is no nice way of dressing it up. However, from what I witnessed, I simply could not see the difference between the two methods. If colleagues get the opportunity to see animals being slaughtered, they should do so—it is gruesome, but they will be better informed.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire said the training of non-religious slaughtermen is rigorous, but it is not as rigorous as that for the shochetim. The shochetim go through examinations, and they have at least three years’ training before they can use the surgical blade. Furthermore—this sounds slightly frivolous—if the shochet is involved in a row while driving to the abattoir, he is not allowed to practise. Not only must the animal be calm, centred and unharmed, but the shochetim must be peaceful and calm as well. A great deal of time and effort are put into ensuring that the process is as humane as possible.

The point about labelling is a fair one, but labelling meat as stunned or non-stunned is simplistic. If we are going to talk about animal welfare, we have to say, “This was stunned”, “This was gassed”, “This was electrified” and “This was a bolt through the head. Oh, by the way, we had to use three bolts before we got it right.” If people want to inform the public about animal welfare, they can do so. If we label meat only kosher or halal, stunned or non-stunned, the danger is that the issue becomes religion, not animal welfare.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who is not in his place, said the scientific evidence showed that non-stunned animals suffered more pain, but that contradicts last November’s report from his all-party parliamentary group for beef and lamb, which said the evidence regarding the pain felt following a bolt through the head or following religious slaughter was inconclusive.

I have two final comments. First, 1% of animals in the food chain are non-stunned, but we seem to obsess about that 1%, rather than about the poor practices that have been illustrated in the slaughter of the other 99% of animals. Secondly, the all-party group report said:

“it is to the benefit and pride of the United Kingdom that religious freedoms allow communities to eat meat prepared in accordance with their religious rites.”

That has been the consistent view of this House, and I say once again that we should leave it alone.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

I now intend to let Mr Blackman speak. We will then have the two Front-Bench spokesmen. I will give Mr Hollobone some time at the end to wind up.

Animal Slaughter (Religious Methods)

Mike Freer Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) for the report and for securing the debate. I read the report and was pleasantly surprised, because it was not what I was expecting. It is balanced, although I take issue with several points in it.

Before I took a view on religious slaughter, I thought I would go and see for myself. I am not sure how many hon. Members have visited a slaughterhouse, but my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) and I ventured out to Witney, of all places, so that we could see for ourselves. I have to say that from the cows’ point of view, there is no such thing as a good death. From what I saw as a layman—I am not an expert—of both types of slaughter, the work of the shochetim in the religious slaughter appeared to be more humane than a bolt through the head. Let us not dance around the niceties—we are talking about a bolt fired at pressure through the centre of a cow’s skull. As hon. Members have already said, all forms of slaughter are unpleasant. We must remember that one is not nice and fluffy while another is cruel.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman has just said. In that sense, would it not be more honest for the organisations that campaign against religious slaughter to campaign as well for all of us to become vegans?

[Mike Freer]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The campaign against religious slaughter is remarkably narrow. If someone is against slaughter, they should be against all slaughter, because neither method is humane from the point of view of the cow, lamb or chicken.

Before we saw the slaughter, I spent some time learning who does the work of the slaughter. The shochetim are highly trained and have to train for many years. From some reports of religious slaughter, one might think that a shochet was a knife-wielding maniac who had wandered in off the street to slit the throats of cows. Shochetim have to undertake years of training and sit exams to prove that they are of a high calibre. Not only are they highly trained, but they are not allowed to operate unless they are at peace and centred. If they have had a car accident or a row with their partner on their way in, or if they are out of sorts that day, they are simply not allowed to practise. A great deal of time and thought is put into ensuring not only that the animal is calm and uninjured, but that the person who uses the blade is equally calm and unperturbed. The process is calm on both sides—for the animal that is being slaughtered and the person who undertakes the slaughtering.

From what I saw, the person who operates a bolt gun undertakes far less training than the shochet who uses a blade. It is almost the case that a person could apply to a slaughterhouse, and within days and with minimal training they could be operating a bolt gun on a cow. I reiterate that the use of the bolt is not humane, and we need to bear that important factor in mind when we compare the two types of slaughter. As the report says, the evidence is inconclusive about the pain experienced by an animal in the stunning involved in religious slaughter compared with stunning by a bolt through the head.

It is important that we use the term “religious slaughter”. The word “rite” is used too glibly, and we are not talking about a rite. Religious slaughter is not like dancing around the maypole; it is not something that we did in the past and from which we can now move on. It is an integral part of being Jewish or Muslim. It is not an option. If someone wants to practise their faith as a Jew or a Muslim, they have to keep kosher or halal. It is not something that they can choose to do on a Monday but choose not to do on a Tuesday. Religious slaughter is not a rite; it is an integral part of the faith.

Perhaps we should simply label meat. I am not fundamentally opposed to labelling, but why does the labelling have to say “stunned” or “not stunned”? In my view, that is an emotional response, not a factual one. It is discriminatory, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) has said, to pick out one or two factors. If we are going to label meat, it is important for the consumer to know whether a piece of meat was stunned or not stunned, gassed or electrified, drowned, trapped or clubbed—or indeed whether two, three or four attempts were required with a bolt through the brain before the animal was killed. If we are going to label, let us label honestly and not try to mislead the public.

I think that the report was a good one, and I fundamentally agree with the statement in the conclusion on page 16 that

“it is to the benefit and pride of the United Kingdom that religious freedoms allow communities to eat meat prepared in accordance with their religious rites.”

I prefer to use the word “beliefs”. In my view, the Government and the House should leave the matter there.