UK Parliament / Open data

Animal Welfare (Non-stun Slaughter)

There is of course a danger that if meat products are labelled in such detail, people will be put off buying them altogether. As my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) said in the debate on 4 November, there is no nice way to kill an animal. It is unpleasant whether halal or kosher, and whether the animal is stunned or not. It is a pretty unpleasant business. My hon. Friend has made a good point. At some point the process of improving the amount of information given to consumers in labelling meat products would have to stop, or there would be information overload. I understand the concerns of the Jewish and Muslim communities that to label meat as stunned or non-stunned is not informative enough. I might personally go for a four-bar system stating that the slaughter was stun or non-stun and halal or kosher. I think that is a sensible amount of information that consumers would read and take account of. I accept

that we should provide as much information as possible, but realistically there comes a point where not everything can be put on a label.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
593 c2WH 
Session
2014-15
Chamber / Committee
Westminster Hall
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