Day 291 - 31 Oct 96 - Page 37


     
     1        it is just their same attitude that pervades every issue in
     2        this case.
     3
     4        It was pointed out on page 61 that the sheet of paper which
     5        they had produced, which I believe was undated, about
     6        so-called animal welfare policy was in fact just a general
     7        list of things that suppliers should be concerned about,
     8        this was not only covering certain animal conditions.  At
     9        the bottom of 61, he was asked, "So prior to 1993 when your
    10        fact book was brought out, nowhere was it in writing, there
    11        was no written policy about McDonald's policy on animal
    12        welfare?"  Answer, "Not as far as I am aware."
    13
    14        Then at the bottom of page 63 there is an exchange about
    15        the fact that the subjects became topical, miraculously
    16        they became topical, just before McDonald's produced some
    17        kind of written statement on the subject, and we would say,
    18        and I put to him, "Right, it was in fact to deal with
    19        public...", and I was going to say 'criticism', it was 'dot
    20        dot dot' and he jumped in to say, answer, "Of course."
    21
    22        Finally, on page 65, just a further thing about, "How many
    23        people from McDonald's visit, say, abattoirs?" He said,
    24         "Two people, that is Keith Kenny and Barbara Crawford,
    25        they go, I would say, three to four in total for the two
    26        people, per year."  So they have two people to visit, not
    27        counting Sun Valley, and make a total of about three or
    28        four visits in a whole year.  That is on average, less than
    29        two visits per year each to abattoirs.  There was
    30        discussion about Sainsbury's having people currently
    31        employed in abattoirs following that.
    32
    33        Can I just make some further points?   (Pause) Just to
    34        finish off what I have had to say, that on chickens I did
    35        go through the cruelty, the various parts of the process
    36        that were cruel.  I will not do the same for cattle and
    37        pigs, because it is exactly the same.  Basically, as far as
    38        denial of siblings, confinement, age of death, boredom,
    39        lack of natural behaviour, disease, lack of individual
    40        treatment, leg weaknesses, obviously those, or very, very
    41        similar things, apply equally well to cattle and pigs.
    42        Including transport and slaughter pre-killing line and
    43        during the actual killing itself.
    44
    45        It is cruel, all those stages, not only is it cruel but all
    46        those stages, it does not come within the minimum
    47        conditions outlined by the five freedoms which McDonald's
    48        accept as a basis for gauging animal cruelty and accepted
    49        by Mr. Gregory, who accepted those, as I said yesterday, as
    50        capable of being available in industry, bearing in mind 
    51        commercial considerations.  He said they were not an 
    52        extremist view, i.e., they were not a view which is 
    53        primarily concerned with animal welfare, which this part of
    54        the case should be concerned with.  We are primarily
    55        concerned with animal welfare, the fact that it may or may
    56        not be commercially possible is only a secondly
    57        consideration because as far as we are concerned the
    58        question is, do animals suffer, yes or no?   Whether it is
    59        realistic or unrealistic within McDonald's attempts to make
    60        profits out of the meat industry is a secondary question.

Prev Next Index