Calls for UK to follow France on passing bill to allow mandatory CCTV in slaughterhouses

France has passed a bill ordering slaughterhouses to install CCTV cameras
France has passed a bill ordering slaughterhouses to install CCTV cameras

France has passed a bill to introduce mandatory, independently-monitored CCTV in slaughterhouses, and the UK has been urged to follow suit.

France has passed a bill ordering slaughterhouses to install CCTV cameras, following an outcry over animal cruelty.

Members of the French National Assembly were informed that lawbreaking is a widespread problem in the nation's abattoirs.

The new bill requires slaughterhouses to install CCTV cameras across all areas, including in lairages and on the killing floor, by 2018.

A trial will take place this year to inform how the technology will be rolled out across the board. Those caught inflicting unlawful cruelty on animals will face one year in prison.

Animal Aid - one of the UK's leading animal protection organisations - is today calling on George Eustice MP, Minister for DEFRA, to bring forward similar measures to ensure the use of independently-monitored CCTV becomes mandatory in slaughterhouses, in an effort to combat unlawful animal cruelty.

A poll by the RSPCA has revealed eight out of ten people want animal welfare laws improved or at least kept the same after we leave the EU.

The poll found that 81% of the public believe that post Brexit animal welfare laws in the UK should be improved or at least kept at the same level and only 5% disagreed.

In December, a report instructed by the Welsh Government has recommended that CCTV should not be mandatory in slaughterhouses in Wales.