Wales way behind in animal welfare issues

WE have the right to expect that when animals go to their slaughter they are treated with the greatest possible care. We have a right too to expect that regulations that are intended to ensure this are properly applied.

To help ensure this, in England it will shortly be compulsory (from May) for all slaughterhouses to install CCTV to monitor slaughterhouse practice. Scotland too is consulting its citizens on doing so.

These actions are fully justified in light of overwhelming evidence from documented undercover investigations of very poor welfare practice in many abattoirs.

The UK government Food Standards Agency, the British Veterinary Association and the RSPCA have all argued strongly for compulsory CCTV, while the Farm Animal Welfare Committee recommends that all slaughterhouses have it.

Yet the Welsh Government has recently decided it does not require this. Why? Well, it has so far asked and listened only to industry interests, who deny any problem. It has presumed to ignore not only the evidence of very significant problems and suffering, but also the views and concerns of the Welsh public, treating these as irrelevant.

So Wales, which claims to have “high animal welfare standards”, prefers in reality to be a thirdrate country, lagging behind the standards of the rest of the United Kingdom. David Grimsell Ciliau Aeron, Ceredigion