Freshly slaughtered, plucked chickens on a rack in an abattoir Ministers are considering making CCTV compulsory in slaughterhouses in England, Scotland and Wales to help enforce laws against animal cruelty. Secret footage taken by the charity Animal Aid of alleged abuses has already encouraged large supermarkets to make suppliers fit cameras in the stunning and killing areas of slaughterhouses. But the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is now investigating whether such voluntary measures are enough, according to a paper being presented at the Food Standards Agency (FSA) board meeting next week.
One in five abattoirs killing cows, pigs, goats and sheep now have CCTV. These are responsible for nearly half the red meat obtained from UK slaughterhouses. Just under 30% of poultry slaughterhouses – accounting for 59% of birds – also have CCTV. The figures gathered in September suggest the use of CCTV to protect animal welfare doubled in just over a year.
Asda, Morrisons, J Sainsbury, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Iceland, the Co-op and Waitrose all now require such monitoring.
The agency is working on best-practice guidance for those businesses using CCTV, including daily monitoring – but at different times – by agency vets and staff at the abattoirs. Its officials are still analysing a survey it undertook
The FSA paper says: "Defra ministers are currently considering their position with regard to mandatory installation of CCTV by businesses and introduction of other measures to improve animal welfare standards in slaughterhouses.
"Those slaughterhouses where CCTV has not been installed are typically small- to medium-sized slaughterhouses. CCTV installation costs can vary from £100 to £200 for a webcam system to many thousands of pounds for a very sophisticated system. An average system with a hard-disk recorder would typically cost about £2,000.
"On this basis, the one-off cost to industry associated with compulsory installation of CCTV would be in the region of £600,000."
Kate Fowler, head of campaigns at Animal Aid, said: "It is heartening to see ministers are looking at ways of doing this. We see the FSA regularly but ministers have so far declined to meet us. We have had to push quite hard to get them to this point. There is a long way to go but we are planning to see this through."