Asked by: Mike Freer (Conservative - Finchley and Golders Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will review the reporting of the mis-stunning of animals before slaughter by the Food Standards Agency to ensure that the way in which the data is collected provides as accurate a picture as possible of the real situation.
Answered by George Eustice
Official Veterinarians of the Food Standards Agency report centrally all cases of non-compliances with the welfare at slaughter regulations. This data provides an accurate picture of welfare breaches at slaughterhouses.
The Welfare at Time of Killing Regulations will come into force next month and we will keep the effectiveness of monitoring and enforcement at slaughterhouses under review.
Asked by: Mike Freer (Conservative - Finchley and Golders Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will commission a study on measures to accurately record incidences of mis-stunning in abattoirs.
Answered by George Eustice
The Food Standards Agency already records instances of mis-stunning in slaughterhouses, so a study in this area is unnecessary. Details were given by the Minister for Public Health on 24 March 2014 : Column 132W – 134W.