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NSS calls on Environment Minister to consider labelling of meat from religious slaughter
Posted: Wed, 06 Mar 2013
The National Secular Society has called on the
Government to consider mandatory labelling of meat from religious
slaughter as part of its response to the horse meat scandal.
Environment
Secretary Owen Paterson MP recently called on the European Commission
to 'accelerate' its recommendations on labelling the origin of all
processed meat, stressing consumers should have confidence in what
they're buying.
Animal welfare legislation requires
animals to be stunned before slaughter in order to minimise suffering.
The only exemption is for religious communities to meet Jewish and
Muslim religious requirements.
At present, meat from
non-stun religious slaughter methods routinely enter the general food
chain. The National Secular Society has argued that this is both
ethically unacceptable and potentially unlawful.
NSS
campaigns manager Stephen Evans has written to both the Food Standards
Agency (FSA) and the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs, Rt Hon Owen Paterson MP, seeking assurances that the
rights of consumers who wish to avoid meat from animals killed under the
religious exemption are also properly considered when considering
labelling of meat products.
Stephen Evans said:
"Current legislation supposedly restricts meat from religious slaughter
to the food of religious communities, but this targeting of supply is
simply not enforced, leaving consumers hoodwinked into subsidising the
religious slaughter business – whether they like it or not.
"It
therefore seems appropriate and reasonable to consider the impact on
consumers in this regard, a significant number of whom would be alarmed
to find that simply not buying or eating labelled halal and kosher meat
does not mean that they have avoided meat from non-stun slaughter.
A
consultation on new domestic legislation, The Welfare of Animals at the
Time of Killing (to be brought into force later this year), closed in
September 2012. Read the NSS's response to this consultation.
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