A council has scrapped its controversial ban on serving ‘cruel’ halal lamb and beef from schools after local Muslims threatened a High Court battle.
The Islamic community in Lancashire were furious when the county council voted to kick out halal meat from its canteens.
Lancashire Council of Mosques (LCM) vowed to launch a judicial review, claiming the authority failed to consult before their ban.
A council has scrapped its controversial ban on serving ‘cruel’ halal lamb and beef from schools after local Muslim threatened a High Court battle
But now councillors have written to the LCM’s chief executive Abdul Hamid Qureshi saying it will quash the ban and ‘consider afresh’ before a fresh vote.
Lancashire County Council will consult on the proposal and continue the current contracts to supply unstunned meat to 27 schools in Blackburn, Nelson, Burnley, Rawtenstall, Hyndburn, Clitheroe and Preston.
A new vote will have to be taken by the county council, taking into account the result of the consultation, before the ban can be reinstated.
Lancashire Council currently supplies 27 schools with ‘unstunned’ halal meat, catering for up to 12,000 children who eat a total of 1.2million meals a year
Lancashire Council of Mosques threatened a High Court judicial review, claiming the county council failed to consult before their ban
The angry protest was sparked by LCM’s insistence that only meat from non-stunned animals met its strict interpretation of Islamic dietary rules.
Delighted Mr Qureshi welcomed the decision to ditch the ban.
He said: ‘We are happy at this move.
‘We now hope that following the consultation they will continue with the current system for supplying halal meat.’
Meanwhile council leader Cllr Geoff Driver said: ‘We are continuing to provide halal meat under the terms of the current contract arrangements while we move to a wider consultation with all interested parties to inform future policy.’
Pictured: Lancashire County Council leader Cllr Geoff Driver CBE
But baffled Cllr John Fillis, deputy leader of the county council Labour group, branded the whole debacle a farce.
He fumed: ‘This is chaos and incompetence.’
After the October ban, the angry Lancashire Council of Muslims called for a boycott of school meals.
They argued that any new contracts would not provide proper halal meat that would meet their strict religious critieria.
They said the issue had been ‘politicised unnecessarily’ and the ban would only serve to ‘increase Islamophobia and antisemitism’.
The debate over halal school meals in Lancashire was previously seized on by far-right groups.
last autumn Paul Golding, the head of Britain First, tweeted about the proposed ban before the controversial October council vote.
UK law requires farm animals to be stunned before slaughter, but provides a religious exemption for Jews and Muslims.
More than 80 per cent of halal meat in the UK is pre-stunned.
Instead of a single defined standard for halal meat in the UK, a range of accreditation agencies inspect and accredit firms that produce meat that is described as halal.