Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the cost is of his Department’s Sea for Yourself campaign; what the performance indicators are for that campaign; and whether an estimate has been made by his Department of the net gain to the English fishing industry of that campaign.

The Sea For Yourself campaign is an initiative to promote seafood species caught in UK waters delivered by Defra in partnership with Seafish. The campaign directs consumers across the UK to the Fish is the Dish (FD) website, with tips and recipes to show consumers how they can cook these species, as well as to information on online sales to help them find out where to buy local fish and shellfish.

The campaign is funded by Defra and Seafish and has a budget of £424,000. The campaign was set up to support the fishing industry and encourage people to eat/buy UK seafood. The campaign is measured by consumer awareness of seafood species caught in UK waters, visits to the FD website and visits to the online sales page on FD, along with propensity to buy UK seafood.