Religious Slaughter of Animals

The National Secular Society has long campaigned for an end to the exemption for religious groups that allows them to ritually slaughter animals without pre-stunning.

The slaughter of animals without pre-stunning, sometimes referred to as ritual slaughter, is permitted in the UK despite a recommendation by the Government's own advisory body, the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), that the practice should be banned. The recommendation to outlaw the practice is supported by the RSPCA, British Veterinary Association and Compassion in World Farming.

The NSS believes that in the interests of animal welfare, all animals should be stunned before slaughter. If slaughter without stunning is still to be permitted then no more animals should be slaughtered under the exemptions than is necessary. We therefore recommend that any that meat from this source must be clearly labelled. The current absence of labelling of such meat deprives consumers of information key to their purchase and consequently also serves to fuel the demand for meat from slaughter without stunning.

The Government no longer keeps statistics on religious slaughter, but in 2004 the Meat Hygiene Service (now merged with the Food Standards Agency) suggested 114 million animals were killed under halal and 2.1 million under kosher methods each year in Britain.

A significant proportion of ritually slaughtered meat in Europe, including the UK, is sold on the general market and is bought by consumers who do not know they are buying meat from animals that have not been stunned before their throats are cut and they are bled to death.

What are we doing?

When, in 2009, we discovered that the European Parliament was about to make it illegal not to grant exemptions from welfare regulation , we campaigned in Brussels and in Westminster against the removal of the option for countries to demand pre-stunning before ritual slaughter. We organised a petition of MPs to the relevant Minister, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Hilary Benn MP. Despite MEPs voting to remove the option, the Council of Ministers supported our position and decided not to follow the European Parliament's decision.

In April 2009 the NSS made a submission to Defra strongly recommending that all meat or meat products produced by slaughter without pre-stunning should be clearly and explicitly labelled at the point of sale or consumption, including food in restaurants and canteens.

We have also lobbied Policy Advisors and MEPs at the European Parliament, seeking to move forward the labelling issue.

We supported an amendment to EU food labelling regulations that would require meat and meat products from ritually slaughtered animals to carry the label "Meat from slaughter without stunning".

Unfortunately, our efforts at the European were frustrated by a well-organised lobbying campaign organised by Shechita UK, a group set up to defend and promote Jewish slaughter methods.

The EU proposals to introduce compulsory labelling in shops for meat produced by ritual slaughter were finally dropped in July following a political deal between MEPs, who supported the proposals, and the Council of Ministers, who did not.

The NSS had raised concerns with the UK Government and in Europe that a significant proportion of this meat is bought by consumers who don't realise they are buying meat from animals not stunned before slaughter.

The Government is due to consult on the implementation of a new EU regulation on the protection of animals at the time of killing in 2012. This will be an opportunity for us to challenge once more the exemptions from animal welfare legislation given to religious groups.

We have also raised awareness of, and our concerns about, the growing trend of serving only halal meat, particularly in canteens and refectories, often covertly. We have the same objection in principle to kosher and halal slaughter methods.