THE views of 25,000 Camden Muslims are worth less to the Town Hall than those of a single non-Muslim, a furious Bengali community leader has claimed after it emerged that halal meat was secretly removed from thousands of children’s school dinners.
Emails obtained by the New Journal show that halal meat was routinely served to Camden school children at more than 50 schools across the borough until last summer, even though it was branded non-halal.
But officials secretly ordered under-fire catering firm Scolarest to stop serving the religiously-blessed meat in July after a mother at Eleanor Palmer School discovered it and complained that halal slaughter was cruel to animals.
The revelation has provoked an angry response from Joynal Uddin, chairman of the Camden Bengali Parents and Tenants Association, who said: “One person ringing up and complaining about halal meat seems to be more important than 25,000 Muslims living in Camden.
“Half of the children in Camden schools are Muslim but we have not been involved in any of the discussions about school dinners.
“We are told that 350 parents were consulted for the council’s review, but no-one can tell us if any were Muslim.
“A large proportion of the Muslim pupils come from Somali and Bangladeshi households that are amongst the most deprived in Camden and for who this is the main meal of the day.”
He speaking after making a deputation to the council’s ruling executive, calling on more to be done to provide halal dinners.
Only Edith Neville and Argyll Primary Schools now make halal food available.
And councillors who voted to “move towards” providing halal meals for all pupils who want them on Tuesday night were all unaware that halal meat had been provided as standard until last year.
Under Muslim law animals must be killed by having their throats cuts while fully conscious while a prayer is recited.
The emails obtained by the New Journal show that officials had noted that the decision had “the capacity to be very sensitive and controversial” and that they did not tell schools or Muslim parents about the change despite the fact that more than half of those receiving free school dinners are Muslim.
Deputy Mayor Cllr Abdul Quadir, who argued passionately that Muslim children had a right to be offered halal food at Tuesday’s meeting, said: “The different communities are not being treated equally.”
And Cllr Pat Callaghan said: “I had no idea and we should have been told – this is a decision for us, not officials.”
As long ago as last May contacts manager Ian Patterson wrote in an e-mail to top education official Yvette Stanley that: “I do not think it is widely known that Halal meat is so prevalent in the catering industry.”
He added: “I am concerned that this could become another sensitive story. We need to decide whether to make a statement.
“If we do then we may have complaints and requests to serve alternative products which would be hard for Scolarest to source without major extra costs.”
And he warned: “If we do not make a statement then it may become public at some point anyway through a school releasing the information or parents inspecting food products from kitchens.
“If so, we will be asked if we knew, how long we knew, what we were doing about it if anything.”
The eventual decision to change to non-halal meat was also kept quiet.
Cllr Theo Blackwell, standing in for absent education supremo Nick Smith said: “The main thing is that we are looking to improve the provision of halal food where it is wanted; it is clearly a complicated subject but we are now doing something about it.”
n Councillors voted last night to increase spending on school dinners from September.
Catering giant Scolarest stepped up its bid to win the new contract with full page ads in both the major local papers this week.