Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:52 pm on 17 January 2018.
I'm grateful again to the Cabinet Secretary. This note of amity is very welcome in the Assembly, I’m sure everybody will agree.
The third area in which I think we ought to be able to improve animal welfare is by the installation of CCTV cameras in abattoirs in Wales. The larger ones already do this, but the smaller ones on the whole don’t. Out of the 29 abattoirs in Wales, I believe there are 18 that are not monitored by CCTV, and they are generally the smaller ones. But it seems to me very important, and I think important for farmers generally and the agriculture industry generally, that the public has confidence in the food that is put on the table and the methods by which it is produced and processed, and in order to keep up public support for farmers and agriculture generally, we need to be proactive in showing that animals are kept and, when they are killed, also are killed in a humane way and to the highest possible standards of animal welfare. So, this is an area in which the Welsh Government could take an initiative, even at the moment, before we leave the EU. I wonder if the Cabinet Secretary would give further consideration to extending the existing controls.