Council votes to ban schools from serving non-stunned Halal meat

Welfare at slaughter is one of the UK’s most pressing health and welfare concerns for vets
Welfare at slaughter is one of the UK’s most pressing health and welfare concerns for vets

Lancashire County Council has voted to ban schools from serving halal meat from animals that are not stunned before slaughter.

Thousands of Lancashire schoolchildren will no longer be served the un-stunned halal meat for school meals.

Muslim leaders have described the move as "unnecessary and divisive".

The council explained that it ‘recognises and respects’ the Muslim community’s requirement for food to comply with religious beliefs, but said it was ‘concerned that slaughtering animals without stunning them beforehand causes them unnecessary stress and suffering’.

The proposal was brought by the Conservative council leader Geoff Driver, who said it is "abhorrent" and "really cruel" to slaughter animals without stunning them first.

Councillors voted 41 to 24 to ban the meat from county-run schools. Fifteen councillors abstained.

As part of the resolution, animals will have to be stunned before they are slaughtered in order for the meat to be served in 27 schools in the county which cater for 12,000 children.

Conservative councillor Andrew Snowden said the issue was about “the minimum treatment we expect animals to receive”

UK law requires farm animals to be stunned before slaughter, but provides a religious exemption for Jews and Muslims.

'Risen sharply'

The number of animals killed without pre-stunning has risen sharply, according to analysis by the British Veterinary Association (BVA) of the latest survey released by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

The BVA said that slaughter without stunning "unnecessarily compromises" the welfare of animals at the time of death.

The figures show that almost a quarter (24.4%) of sheep and goats slaughtered between April and June this year had their throats cut without first being made insensible to pain.

There has also been an increase from 15% in 2013, when the EU and UK-adopted legislation allowing an exemption for animals that are slaughtered for religious purposes came into force.

The number of chickens being slaughtered without pre-stunning has soared from 3% in 2013 to 18.5% in 2017, the FSA figures also revealed.

The BVA has labelled the figures a "grave concern" to the veterinary profession, and called for all livestock to be stunned before slaughter.