Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the exemption from stunning for religious slaughter on the Food Standards Agency's inspection and enforcement costs.

The Food Standards Agency apply animal welfare controls within approved slaughterhouses in England and Wales under a Service Level Agreement with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and the Welsh Government.

We assess the impact of inspection and enforcement requirements on costs as part of the annual process of reviewing the Service Level Agreement. The Agreement applies to all of FSA’s monitoring and enforcement of the relevant animal welfare requirements, and does not consider slaughter without stunning separately.