Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

Shabana Mahmood Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and to speak after the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), who opened the debate very well. I note that the last time I spoke in a Westminster Hall debate on this matter, he was in the Chair. It has been good to hear his views this afternoon.

I welcome this debate. It is important that we debate this very emotive issue in an atmosphere of calm in which, hopefully, reason can dominate, rather than the hysteria that we sometimes see in the national media. Certainly there was much more hysteria the last time this issue was debated in Westminster Hall, and religious minority communities in this country—the Muslim and Jewish communities—rightly felt picked on and unfairly scrutinised. It was as if people were saying that their way of life was significantly more cruel, and that they were more reckless as to the level of cruelty than any other communities, which is a deeply unfair mischaracterisation of the seriousness with which practising religious minority communities in this country take their religious obligations.

It is clear from some interventions that significant points of disagreement will remain at the end of the debate, but it is important that we continue to examine these issues in an atmosphere that, as the hon. Member for Kettering said, generates light rather than heat. As I have noted before, I am a practising Muslim, so the debate matters to me on a personal level, but I also represent many thousands of practising Muslims and Jews, and both communities have written to ask me to place on the record in this debate their views and feelings.

It is interesting to note that the first national legislative requirement in England and Wales for stunning before slaughter was in the Slaughter of Animals Act 1933, which, even then, retained an exception from stunning for religious slaughter by Jews and Muslims. That strikes me as a very British approach to an issue that is clearly of long-standing interest to both the public and legislators in this place. The Government have made it clear—this is my understanding; I hope that the Minister will confirm it this afternoon—that they do not intend to move away from having an exception in the law for religious non-stun slaughter. I welcome that commitment on behalf of my constituents, for whom this is an incredibly important issue.

As we have heard in the debate, the key point of disagreement is of course about welfare. I have to say to hon. Members who tried to make a distinction between a debate that is focused on religion and one that is focused on welfare that it is actually very difficult to make that distinction. For those of us who are members of a religious minority in this country and who practise our faith, it is very difficult to hear people say, “Actually, we are talking about only one thing here, not something else. You shouldn’t really feel so strongly about it.” That is simply not possible to do. All these issues are tied in intimately with one another and should therefore be considered in that context.

There will be differing views, and different pieces of science that we can quote at one another in support of our respective positions on whether non-stun slaughter is or can be described as humane, but one point that is often not made in these debates is that for religious minority communities, the non-stun slaughter of animals must be done in a way that ensures that the animal does not suffer. The whole reason for having those rules and laws in the first place was precisely to prevent the suffering of animals. It is testimony to the importance of the ancient texts that laid down those laws that there was such concern for animal rights at that point. That motivation and desire to ensure that an animal does not suffer needless pain is important for everyone to remember when we debate these matters.

I also make the point that for religious people, who are looking for religious slaughter of animals before they consume meat, that act itself is an act of faith, because religious people, who care about these issues, do not take the killing of animals lightly. The hon. Member for Kettering made the point that there is no good way to kill an animal—I made that exact point in the last debate—but for religious communities, the right to take the life of an animal is an expression of faith. It is a God-given right that can be exercised only in very specific and prescribed circumstances. For people who take their religious obligations seriously and who practise their religious obligations, these are matters of great concern. These things are not done in a way that is negligent or reckless as to what act is being committed.

Practising Muslims and Jews know, when they are consuming meat, that as a matter of religious law, they are allowed that meat only in certain circumstances. They recognise that the animal had a life and then died. They care about that fact before they consume that meat. It is important to recognise that, because often the debate happens in a way that implies that we simply do not care about the welfare of animals—we just want it our way and no other way—without recognising the reasons behind how those ways came about.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Before the hon. Lady concludes her remarks, will she deal with the point about labelling? Surely there can be no objection to supporting more comprehensive labelling of halal meat.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am grateful for that intervention. The next part of my remarks is about precisely that: labelling. However, before I leave the issue of welfare, I want to say—this point was made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)—that enforcement of the current rules on welfare is just as important, when we discuss these issues, as whether religious slaughter is humane or can be done in other ways, because any abuse of the current rules does not exactly inspire confidence that any additional rules that we may bring in will be followed.

The point about mis-stunning is really important. For religious communities, the risk that an animal has been mis-stunned would negate the claim that it had been slaughtered in accordance with religious rites. Even those who accept that stunning might be possible under a different reading of religious law would not tolerate mis-stunning, which is cruel and barbaric.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Many of the points that my hon. Friend is making will be welcomed by the large number of my constituents who have contacted me about the matter. In the discussions that she has had, have any concerns been expressed about the pretty horrific things that appear to be going on under the label of mis-stunning? In theory, that is supposed to protect animal welfare, but the reality seems to be very different.

[Shabana Mahmood]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why it is so important that we reach the position of being able to guarantee that the current basic standards are fully realised in slaughterhouses. We all need to understand better what goes on in slaughterhouses and how different types of animals are slaughtered in the current process. It is important to shed more light on what goes on in slaughterhouses before moving the debate to other practices and complicating things further. That may or may not be a road that we want to go down, but it does not inspire confidence about enforcement if we cannot do things correctly now.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

We are talking about the clash of two principles, one being animal welfare and the other being people’s right to practise their religion. If it were proved that there were serious issues of animal welfare, which of those two principles does the hon. Lady believe would trump the other?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The hon. Gentleman and I are entering the debate from different starting points. I do not accept that non-stun slaughter is cruel or inhumane, if it is done properly in accordance with Jewish or Islamic religious texts. We must not forget that those texts lay down clear and detailed rules about, for example, how one animal must not witness what happens to another animal. That would never apply in any of the slaughterhouses where the mechanised slaughter of large volumes of animals takes place. I simply reject the basis of the hon. Gentleman’s question.

I turn to the question of labelling, which we have debated before. I agree with the labelling of our meat, and I believe that all consumers in this country should have a much better idea of where our meat comes from. My perspective on the debate is shaped by being a practising Muslim. I have spent my whole life looking at labels and trying to work out whether something contains, for example, derivatives of alcohol or derivatives of pig meat. For me, labels that provide a lot of detail and information are a great thing, because they enable me to exercise choice. At the moment, when I am in doubt about something, I simply put it back, but I may be missing out on something that I could legitimately have consumed. Often, I rely on the good old V symbol on food, which shows that it is suitable for vegans and vegetarians, because I think that it must be okay for me as long as it is not a meat product. That does not help me out when it comes to meat, however.

I reject what the hon. Member for Kettering said about the danger of too much information. I simply do not buy that argument. If we say that people should be able to make a choice, we should ensure that their choice is fully informed. If we want to shed light, we should not say that that light can extend no further than an arbitrary threshold. That seems very unfair to me. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the line should be drawn at labelling meat halal or kosher, and stun or non-stun, but to do so would support a debate that is about heat rather than light. Such a debate stigmatises certain communities and implies that their way of doing things is really bad, so there must be a special label to allow people to opt out of it. To say that is to forget that there is no good, clean way of killing an animal; it ends up dead one way or the other.

We ought to know more about how animals are stunned. As a result, many people may well make the choice that they do not want to consume meat full stop, and they have the right to do so. That is not a choice that I would make, because I am quite well informed about these things. I make my choice knowing exactly what happens when stunning does or does not take place, and what happens during different types of slaughter. However, I believe that the majority of people in our country do not have that knowledge. If we are to be champions of animal rights and animal welfare, not only in our country but across the world, we should be better informed as a nation. Detailed labelling would go a long way to supporting that.

The point has been made that 80% of the halal meat produced within the Muslim community is stunned. It is certainly true to say that large numbers of Muslims have accepted the stunning of animals before slaughter, and it should be open to them to make that choice. Clearly, there is a demand for such meat, because it is being produced and consumed. For those of us who wish to make a different choice, however, it is just as important to know that our halal meat is non-stunned and to be able to rely on the label to give us true and accurate information. I am all for labelling, but it should be thorough. It should not be introduced because we want to muddy the waters in the debate. I believe that some on the other side of the argument believe that we are trying to do that when we say that a label should detail whether the stunning has been done by bolt, or whatever. We support that precisely because we live in the information age, and people want to know what has happened to an animal. We should not draw an arbitrary line that puts some communities under greater scrutiny and makes people feel threatened. We should make all the information available for all to see. In an age of social media, it is very easy to put lots of information into the public domain so that the public who care about the matter will learn about it, understand it and then apply the rules to their daily life.

I accept that as technology develops, we should continue to re-examine the issues that we are discussing. Speaking from a Muslim perspective, it is imperative that as society and science evolve, we continue to examine our jurisprudence and our approach to it. However, I see nothing at the moment that would support a derogation from the exception for non-stun slaughter. We should ask much deeper questions about the mechanisation of our slaughter processes and the volume of meat that we produce, and whether they make it difficult to maintain any kind of standards. When so much meat has to be produced in such a short time, it is hard to keep track of different rules and regulations. I believe that that is where science, as it develops, should focus. I see no reason for us to move away from the very British way in which we have approached the matter. We have maintained the exception in law for many decades, and I hope that the Government will confirm that that exception will remain for the foreseeable future.