Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and David Ward

Monday 23rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[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.