I genuinely do not know. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of that statistic. All I would say is that I have watched quite a number of sheep having their throat cut after electrical stunning not just in the UK but in New Zealand, and they usually become insensible—in other words, their head collapses—in about 15 seconds. I have never witnessed an animal come round at a point at which it might suffer. I cannot answer the hon. Lady’s question.
Understandably, there has been a lot of debate about labelling, not least because a lot of shechita meat is not acceptable for Jews to eat and therefore goes into the mainstream, as does a lot of halal, whether or not it has been pre-cut stunned. Nobody can argue against informing consumers, of course, and I would never dream of doing so. I have advocated all sorts of labelling, and I would support it in this instance, except that I question whether it would work. It is not that I think that consumers would not respond to it; however, it is wide open to abuse. It would be extremely difficult to enforce and monitor, and to trace pieces of meat as they moved through the supply chain to determine whether the labelling on whether the animal was stunned before slaughter was correct.
I am afraid that I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering about putting religious connotations into labelling, because I wholly object to anybody discriminating on those grounds. People have written to me saying, “I object to buying meat that has had some Muslim say a prayer over it.” I reject that attitude totally; in my view, it is racist, and I will have nothing to do with it. I am concerned purely with welfare.
I want to mention the distinction that was made concerning the Jewish process, which renders an animal effectively dead the moment its throat is cut. As I said, I have never actually witnessed that process, so I cannot speak from experience, but if that is the case, I cannot see how that community can argue against a post-cut stun. If their view is that the animal is dead the moment its throat is cut, what is wrong with a bolt or electrical shock seconds afterwards? According to that argument, it is effectively being applied to a dead animal.
The conclusion that I came to when I was the Minister responsible—frankly, I wish that I had had time to pursue the issue as I wanted to—was that the way forward to reduce suffering while recognising the need for proper respect for religious rites was to introduce compulsory post-cut stunning. That would have been far more effective at reducing suffering, as I witnessed. I also thought that the arguments used by those who opposed a pre-cut stun would fall aside, if their view is that the animal is dead immediately after stunning.