The debate has quite rightly focused on animal welfare. I have to say that those who believe in methods associated with religious slaughter are equally concerned with animal welfare. I am not Jewish, but, representing Finchley and Golders Green, I have taken a great deal of time to understand the religious traditions behind religious slaughter. Any rabbi or imam will say that the welfare of the animal is paramount. If the animal is stressed or in any way hurt or damaged, it cannot be slaughtered. It is also important to remember the long and proud tradition we have of protecting religious freedoms. I do not believe that the two are incompatible.
We are here once more, having debated the same issues in November. I apologise, but I want to repeat some points that I have made previously. I recognise that the debate has been prompted by 116,000 people signing a petition calling for non-stun slaughter to be banned, which I believe was started last April. However, 10 days ago, a counter-petition was started, which now has 124,000 signatures. My point is that the public are completely divided. There is not a common view.
Before we go on to the key animal welfare issues, I will touch on something that is a bit like the elephant in the room. A number of Members have alluded to the fact that our religious communities, whether the Muslim community or the Haredi community in Hackney, the Jewish community that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and I share in London, or the largest Jewish population in the UK, represented by a colleague from slightly further away, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), and our constituents, are concerned about the motives behind some of the debate—not all of it, but some of it.
I believe that the vast majority of people raising this issue are concerned with animal welfare, but that for some it is a flag of convenience. For instance, when Animal Aid aired the video on 3 February of the appalling behaviour of slaughtermen in a halal abattoir, there was quite rightly an outcry, but a week later, when a video was aired showing the same behaviour in a mainstream abattoir, there was not a peep. It is an interesting juxtaposition of people’s responses: for halal, there is outcry, but for non-halal, silence.
I have also had e-mails in the past saying:
“I don’t want my meat touched by a dirty man in a beard”
or
“I don’t want Muslim meat”—
whatever Muslim meat is. I have bought meat in halal shops, in kosher shops and in Sainsbury’s, and frankly I cannot tell the difference, so I am still trying to get my head around how Muslim meat or kosher meat is meant to be so different that people do not want it because it is blessed or is in some way religious meat. Sadly, it shows that perhaps ignorance, racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism lurk behind some of the respectable arguments.