UK needs to change laws on slaughter and protect animal welfare - Yorkshire Post Letters

THE trustees of the Yorkshire Churches Regional Business Support charity (The Yorkshire Post, October 28) join other groups in demanding that future trade deals must ensure that food imports meet the ‘high standards of animal welfare and environmental protection to which British farmers produce’.

Indeed British farmers are to be congratulated on the high standards of animal welfare and the undeniable quality of their produce.

The standard of their animal husbandry is second to none.

But the responsibility farm animal welfare does not end at the farm gate.

Can the ‘trustees’ and other campaign groups justifiably claim the UK has the best animal welfare standards whilst slaughtering without stunning (over 94 million in 2018 according to the Food Standards Agency) remains lawful practice in the UK?

As well as the RSPCA and the British Veterinary Association wishing to see an end to non-stun slaughter 89 per cent of some 23,000 Europeans polled considered this practice unacceptable.

Already, some enlightened European countries have prohibited non-stun slaughter as well as the big meat exporting countries of Australia and New Zealand who may see an opening for their pre-stun meat and meat products due to the refusal of successive governments to bring animal slaughter legislation into the 21st century.

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