Non-stun Slaughter of Animals
Debate between Rupert Lowe and Iqbal Mohamed(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Rupert Lowe
The issue of stunning is complex, as the hon. Member probably knows. The halal stun is a lower voltage than the non-halal stun. As the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) rightly said, chickens are put into an electric bath before they are killed. It is the level of the stun that counts.
Freedom of belief does not mean freedom to cause cruel and brutal pain. When I care for animals, I have the most stringent set of rules to abide by. I am regulated on how I house them, feed them and transport them. There are inspections, paperwork and codes of practice, all to make sure they are treated with dignity.
Rupert Lowe
I am going to finish.
A halal abattoir can brutally butcher an animal alive, and all is fine. Where is the fairness in that? Where is the humanity in that?
This is not a fringe issue. In 2024, an estimated 214.6 million animals were slaughtered for halal meat: 27 million entirely non-stunned and the remainder with some form of weak and ineffectual attempt to ease the animal’s pain, often just causing an epileptic fit. It is state-endorsed butchery. We talk so much in this place about being a nation of animal lovers. It is time to prove it. Let us ban non-stun slaughter, along with any fig leaf of reduced-stun slaughter, which simply accentuates the suffering.