Challenge to non-stunned meat served in Lancashire schools

22 September, 2017

The leader of Lancashire County Council Geoff Driver has submitted a proposal to ban halal meat that has not been pre-stunned before slaughter from being served in the county’s schools, after it has been revealed that twenty-seven schools with a total of 12,000 pupils across the county are serving all pupils meat from suppliers where stunning is not used. The Council will vote on the proposal on 26 October. Humanists UK, which opposes religious exemptions in law that allow animals to be slaughtered without stunning, welcomes this proposal. It stressed that all public bodies including schools have a duty to ensure that the meals they provide conform to legal requirements, which clearly prohibit non-stunned meat being consumed on the general market.

Non-stunned slaughter involves the cutting of an animal’s throat whilst the animal is still fully conscious and alert. Current regulations regarding the welfare of animals specify that all animals must be stunned so that they are insensible to pain at the time of slaughter, reducing the animal’s suffering. However, there are loopholes in this law that allow Muslims and Jews to slaughter meat in accordance with halal and kosher traditions without stunning, for consumption only by members of their respective religions.

There is substantial evidence that non-stunned halal meat is being served widely and unknowingly to non-Muslims including in schools, hospitals, and prisons. The Halal Food Authority believes that halal meat (of which 20 percent is not stunned before slaughter) now represents 25 percent of the entire meat market in the UK. Currently, there is no requirement for non-stunned halal meat to be labelled indicating the method of slaughter.

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