Lancashire became the first council to ban unstunned halal meat in school dinners.

After a bitter and impassioned debate which ran on for hours on Thursday afternoon, the Conservative-controlled council voted for the ban.

The campaign was fought between council leader Geoff Driver and part of the the local Muslim community.

In 2012, the council briefly stopped supplying halal meat to local schools over a production issue, but after children boycotted their school dinners, the unstunned meat was reinstated.

The council currently supplies 27 schools across the county with unstunned halal meat. According to research by the National Secular Society, four other local authorities use unstunned meat - Leeds, Bradford, Leicester, and Telford and Wrekin.

Many Muslims will not eat meat from animals which are pre-stunned, as they worry the stunning process could kill the animals, and eating meat from livestock which died before the ceremonial Halal slaughter process is “haram”, or forbidden.