Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

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

I apologise for my late arrival, Mr Havard—I was chairing the Select Committee on Transport—and I thank you for calling me to speak. I congratulate the hon. Members who secured the debate and the 115,000 people who signed the e-petition, which has brought this debate to the fore.

There are differences of view on this topic, but I believe that everybody speaks about it with sincerity, and that concerns about animal welfare are at the forefront. I ask that the concerns of the Jewish community be considered when looking at this whole issue, and that some thought be given to shechita, the Jewish method of slaughter, in relation to the genuine and legitimate concerns raised by petitioners, which have led to today’s debate. First, I hope that we can all reject the term “ritual slaughter”, which is often used in relation to both Jewish and Muslim methods of slaughter. That is an unpleasant, pejorative term with very unpleasant connotations. It is not helpful for such a term to be used.

I stress that Judaism’s key concern is with the animal’s welfare, in life as well as in death. Shechita, the Jewish method of slaughter, is extremely complex. It has rules governing which animals people are permitted to eat, what condition they must be in before that is allowed, and how they are killed and subsequently dealt with, and it is performed by a trained person whose licence is annually renewed. The incision is made by a regularly inspected sharp instrument at the structure at the back of the neck, and at that point, blood supply and the ability to feel pain cease, consciousness is immediately lost, and rapid death follows. In effect, cutting and stunning happen almost simultaneously. It is important to spell those things out, because it is vital that when slaughter of a permitted animal occurs it is done in the kindest, most pain-free way possible.

What is not permitted under Jewish laws is mechanical stunning. We are not just talking about stunning; we are talking about mechanical stunning. Many people believe that mechanical stunning is essentially superior to any other kind of stunning as regards the alleviation of pain, but there is no scientific unanimity on that point. In a recent contribution in the other place, the noble Lord Winston went into some detail on those points, and I do not intend to repeat that here.

It is important to look at what happens in practice. Mis-stunning takes place on a significant scale. The Food Standards Authority has admitted that its numbers do not constitute a full record, and that it is likely that a greatly reduced number of animals have been recorded as having been subjected to mis-stunning. The 2004 report from the European Food Safety Authority on the welfare aspects of animal stunning and killing methods shows that failure rates for mechanical stunning in cattle may be more than 6.6% and could rise to 31% for non-penetrative bolt stunning and electric stunning. There is a significant level of mis-stunning. Anecdotal reports from DEFRA show a similar picture.

It is also important to remember the video produced by Animal Aid after secret filming in three slaughterhouses in 2009, which showed pigs, sheep and calves inadequately stunned by electrocution, and horrific scenes in those slaughterhouses of animals trying to flee and ewes watching their young being killed.

In debating this issue, it is important that we look at not only the theory but the facts. It is also important that there is proper monitoring of what takes place in all slaughterhouses, whatever the methods of slaughter, and that CCTV is used where it can be effective in showing what is actually happening.

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

I have a large number of constituents who are concerned about animal welfare. I also have a large number of constituents who are concerned that this debate and this petition highlight animal welfare issues for the Muslim and Jewish communities that are not being highlighted more widely. My hon. Friend referred to the Animal Aid videos and filming, but some of the terrible practices they show were in places that have nothing to do with shechita or halal. They were producing meat in the normal, run-of-the-mill way that we do in this country. Is there therefore not a danger that we are focusing the debate on the wrong issue? We should be concerned about all animals and their welfare. If people do not like animals being hurt in any way, presumably they will become vegans. I am afraid that I am not prepared to do that, but—

--- Later in debate ---

[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.