Over 5,000 butchers from Pakistan will be offered employment in the halal meat industry in Britain, it has been announced.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between National Halal Foods Group (NHFG) in Britain and the Overseas Employment Cooperation of Pakistan, signed at the Pakistan High Commission in London on Friday, has cemented the deal.

The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), which advises the government on how to avoid cruelty to livestock, says the way halal meat is produced causes severe suffering to animals and should be banned.

The Muslim religion demands that slaughter is carried out with a single cut to the throat, rather than the more widespread method of stunning with a bolt into the head before slaughter.

Peter Jinman, president of the British Veterinary Association, is on record as urging Muslims to be respectful of animals. “We’re looking at what is acceptable in the moral and ethical society we live in,” he said.

The FAWC said it wanted an end to the exemption currently allowed for halal meat from the legal requirement to stun animals first. It says cattle can take up to two minutes to bleed to death — amounting to an abuse of the animals.

“This is a major incision into the animal and to say that it doesn’t suffer is quite ridiculous,” said FAWC chairwoman, Dr Judy MacArthur Clark.

Compassion in World Farming backed the call, saying: “We believe that the law must be changed to require all animals to be stunned before slaughter.”