Campaign pushes Welsh Government into introducing CCTV in slaughterhouses

 Unpublished article for Landworker magazine of Unite the Union 

The Welsh Labour Government is making it mandatory for all Welsh slaughterhouses to install CCTV by 2023/24.  The move  brings Wales in line with England and Scotland after the latter introduced mandatory CCTV on 1^st July 2021. The pressure is now on Northern Ireland to follow suit. The Welsh Government’s decision forms part of a new ‘Animal Welfare Plan’ that is being rolled out over the next 5 years.

The animal welfare charity Animal Aid (AA) campaigns against all forms of animal abuse and promotes cruelty-free living. AA has undertaken groundbreaking undercover investigations on farms, ‘game bird’ establishments and slaughterhouses.

 In 2019, AA released footage of the sixteenth, and the first in Wales, slaughterhouse they had filmed in.

Video footage from the Farmers Fresh Maelor Abattoir in Wrexham appeared to show sheep being pulled along by their legs, dragged by their throats, kicked and thrown by workers, some of whom pinned down and cut the throat of what appeared to be a fully conscious sheep. Animals were hurled down the slaughter conveyor line.

AA urged the ‘Welsh Government to introduce mandatory CCTV in slaughterhouses to help vets with better regulation and monitoring, to provide footage for training and retraining, to deter some of the animal welfare abuses we filmed and to provide evidence for prosecutions should they be necessary.’

At the start of 2020 there were 24 slaughterhouses in Wales. Yet despite a voluntary joint protocol adopted in 2017 between the Food Standards Agency  and the industry only 10 slaughterhouses had CCTV installed. The Welsh Government had made funding available for CCTV equipment installation.  

Slaughterhouses without CCTV must now install them over the next few years in areas where live animals are present after new rules were included in the Animal Welfare Plan for Wales published by Welsh rural affairs minister Lesley Griffiths: “Whilst CCTV cannot replace direct oversight by slaughterhouse management or Official Veterinarians (OVs), it can improve the efficiency of monitoring and enforcement activity. CCTV can provide OVs with the information they need to monitor compliance with the welfare at the time of killing regulations more readily and more conveniently. This will support improved consumer confidence that welfare standards are being delivered.

“There will be requirements for slaughterhouse operators to allow enforcement agencies to access footage and for footage to be stored for a specified period. “

The Welfare Plan also includes a pledge to develop a country-wide model to monitor and enforce animal welfare standards, registration for commercial breeders (for pets or for shooting), animal welfare establishments, and animal exhibits, the boosting of qualifications of animal welfare inspectors and restrictions of the use of cages for farmed animals. 

“Our ambition is for animal welfare in Wales to be recognised for its exemplary standards,” said Griffiths, who was first elected to the Welsh Assembly in 2007.

Tor Bailey, Campaign Manager, Animal Aid welcomed the “decision by the Welsh Government to bring Wales in line with England and Scotland. Animals at slaughterhouses are extremely vulnerable – they are in the total power of people, many of whom have become desensitised, paid to end their lives… We urge the Welsh government to bring forward strict rules regarding the placement and operation of cameras, access and storage of footage. Full independent monitoring of footage is vital to help safeguard farmed animals. “