The government has rejected a call to ban the non-stun slaughter of animals after defending the right of Jews and Muslims to eat meat prepared in accordance with their beliefs.
A Westminster Hall debate took place on Monday after a petition stating “non-stun slaughter is barbaric and doesn’t fit in with our culture and modern-day values and should be banned” attracted 109,018 signatures.
A separate motion calling for a ban on “halal slaughter” had been brought by the former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe, now standing as an independent after a row with leader Nigel Farage.
During the debate Daniel Zeichner, the Minister for Rural Affairs, said:”It is the Government’s preference that all animals should be stunned before slaughter.
“However, the Government respect the right of Jews and Muslims to eat meat prepared in accordance with their beliefs. We therefore intend to continue to allow the religious slaughter of animals for consumption by Muslims and Jews.
“We believe that is an important religious freedom, as we have heard; many have spoken passionately about that point. “There is a long history of upholding this freedom, set down in legislation since the Slaughter of Animals Act 1933, which contained an exemption from stunning for religious slaughter by Jews and Muslims.
“Since then, animal welfare legislation concerning all slaughter methods has continued to develop, with new requirements introduced through EU legislation in 2013 that have now been assimilated into UK law.
“When animals are slaughtered either by the Jewish method or the Muslim method without prior stunning, there are additional animal welfare rules that apply to ensure that animals are spared avoidable pain, suffering or distress during the slaughter process.”
Daniel Zeichner
The petition stated:”In modern society, we believe more consideration needs to be given to animal welfare and how livestock is treated and culled.
“We believe non-stun slaughter is barbaric and doesn’t fit in with our culture and modern-day values and should be banned, as some EU nations have done.”
Lowe was questioned in the debate as to why his opposition to non-stun slaughter had appeared to focus only on Halal slaughter.
Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi had said:“The petition talks about non-stun slaughter in general, but public focus has been almost entirely on halal. Kosher slaughter uses the same method but is rarely mentioned. ”
The Independent MP Ayoub Khan quizzed Lowe on whether he viewed kosher meat in a similar bad light to halal.
He replied:”I do. We’re all eating halal meat without knowing it.
“You are all eating halal meat without knowing it. I find that morally repugnant. We should ban non-stun slaughter, we should ban halal slaughter and we should ban kosher slaughter.”
Rupert Lowe MP
Lowe’s motion had earlier received the backing of Conservative MP Bradley Thomas and Sammy Wilson of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party.
Hendon MP David Pinto-Duschinsky also spoke pointing out that modern industrial methods of stunning “often involve significant distress and suffering.”
He added:”These processes are used not to minimise pain, but to maximise economic efficiency.
“They still entail significant suffering, and it is not clear at all that they involve less suffering than traditional forms of ritual slaughter used in the Muslim and Jewish communities.
“For instance, evidence suggests that animals undergoing kosher or halal slaughter often rapidly lose consciousness.
“A recent peer-reviewed report in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association suggests that, in the case of kosher slaughter, consciousness is lost within 10 seconds.
“Both Jewish and Muslim traditions emphasise the compassionate and humane treatment of animals. ”
Pinto-Duschinsky also rejected calls for labelling of kosher and halal meat.
“Some proponents have suggested not banning kosher and halal slaughter, but labelling all kosher and halal meat as non-stun,” he said.
“I say to them that, at a time when antisemitism has reached record levels and Islamophobia has risen dramatically, labelling meat prepared for the Jewish and Muslim communities as inherently cruel not only is inaccurate, but will feed the fires of prejudice.”
The Conservative MP Jerome Mayhew said it was important to recognise “a commitment to animal welfare on the one hand, and respect for religious freedoms on the other.
But he added:”Many consumers are unaware of whether the meat they purchase comes from stunned or non-stunned animals, and that is not the same as saying the meat is halal or kosher.
“We have heard repeatedly that 88% of all halal-killed animals are pre-stunned. Nevertheless, there are currently no legal requirements to label meat by method of slaughter.
“That creates a genuine lack of consumer choice—especially for those who, for ethical or welfare reasons, prefer to avoid non-stun meat, or conversely, those who wish to consume meat that has been religiously slaughtered.”
David Pinto-Duschinsky, the new MP for Hendon,
Opening the debate Liberal Democrat MP Jamie Stone said it was crucial that MPs “properly and thoughtfully consider the other side of the debate, namely, the religious communities that require this method of slaughter for halal and kosher practices.”
He said:”Proponents of those practices argue that banning non-stun slaughter would violate their freedoms.
“The teachings of the Jewish and Muslim religions state that an animal must be fully alive before it is slaughtered. Accordingly, the stunning of an animal before slaughter may be interpreted as not being compliant with such religious teachings.”
He continued:”In my discussions with both the Jewish and Muslim communities, I actually learned a very great deal myself. I found particularly fascinating the fact that the method used is scripture-based, and I think that is important to remember.”
Stone added:”From my discussions with the Islamic and Jewish communities, I think that the concept of labelling could be quite acceptable to them, if that would give people choice.”
The RSPCA has estimated that 30 million animals were slaughtered without first being stunned in 2024.
A high percentage slaughtered for halal meat in the UK is stunned first, while this did not take place for kosher meat.
