Michael Gove told: 'You are threatening children's heart and brain health'

Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove has been accused by marine conservation and health groups [1] of “threatening the ability of children to feed themselves in the future with heart and brain-healthy fish” by failing to adopt mandatory sustainable fish standards for school meals [2]. Schools spend £43 million on fish every year, and national healthy food standards for schools include fish at least once a week for primary schools, and twice a week for secondary schools.

Gove’s education department was also the subject of an official complaint from the marine conservation groups for “irresponsible misinformation”, when civil servants asserted in a response to hundreds of concerned citizens and marine conservation groups that schools can buy sustainable fish via official catering supply contracts. In fact only one out of four of the food contracts specified that some of the fish would be from sustainable sources [3]. This accusation comes at a time of particular public interest in fish, just days after the launch of the ‘Save our Seas’ campaign from the new series of Hugh’s Fish Fight on Channel 4 (the previous Fish Fight discards campaign gained support from over 850,000 people).

“At the moment, nine in every ten schoolchildren are likely to be served fish from fisheries that are in a dire state, caught in ways that kill wildlife,” said Emily Howgate, who runs the Sustainable Fish City campaign that is calling for strict conservation standards for all fish served in schools. “Michael Gove is setting a terrible example to children, whose future food supply depends on good management of fisheries right now. Recognising that the world’s fish stocks are in peril, the government has already introduced strict rules to feed themselves top-quality sustainable fish, with standards that also cover fish served to civil servants, soldiers and prisoners [4]. McDonald’s now serves certified sustainable Filet o’ Fish [5]. Even Number 10’s Larry the Cat is likely to be eating sustainable fish [6], but not the nation’s schoolchildren!”

The criticisms of Michael Gove’s lack of action on sustainable fish for schools came in a Sustainable Fish in Schools submission to the Department for Education’s current School Food Review [2]. This submission, backed by health and marine conservation experts, provides evidence that sustainable fish has been simple, achievable and affordable for the 14% of schools that already serve and promote Marine Stewardship Council verifiably sustainable wild-caught fish [7]. The submission also states that without a national, legally binding standard for sustainable fish in schools, the remaining 86% of schools are unlikely to be able to play their part in saving the world’s fish stocks. This is due to lack of time, expertise and access to low-cost buying arrangements such as collaborative and local authority catering contracts that embed robust fish sustainability criteria as standard [8].

Media contact: Emily Howgate, Sustainable Fish City (a project of Sustain), email: fish@sustainweb.org; tel: 0203 5596 777; www.sustainablefishcity.net

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Notes to editors

1. The Sustainable Fish in Schools submission (www.sustainweb.org/resources/files/reports/School_Food_Review_sustainable_fish_Feb13_FINAL.pdf) was submitted by Sustainable Fish City, a campaign run by a group of not-for-profit sustainable food and marine conservation organisations, see: www.sustainablefishcity.net. The group includes: Marine Conservation Society; Marine Stewardship Council; Seafood Choices Alliance, Pisces Responsible Fish Restaurants; Fish2Fork and Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming (an alliance of national food, farming and health organisations, which coordinates the campaign).
2. The government has commissioned a review of school food – the School Food Plan – headed by Leon restaurateurs Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, for Michael Gove and the Department for Education, see: www.education.gov.uk/schoolfoodplan. So far, the Government has failed to adopt sustainable fish standards for school meals. The Sustainable Fish in Schools submission, in which the criticisms are made, is at: www.sustainweb.org/news/feb13_gove_told_stop_threatening_childrens_health. Essential fats such as Omega 3 (especially from oily fish) have important benefits for heart and brain health, which is the reason these are included in food standards for school meals, see medical advice in, for example the Fat fact sheet from the Faculty of Public Health: www.fph.org.uk/uploads/ps_fat.pdf
3. In autumn 2012, 450 concerned citizens, helped by the Sustainable Fish City campaign and backed by leading marine conservation groups, wrote to the Department for Education asking them to champion sustainable fish standards for food served in all schools. The Department’s response stated: “The Department believes that schools should be able to make their own decisions about their day to day running. Schools and local authorities are responsible for their school meals service and for procuring the food served. […] Schools and local authorities can access a range of contracts and frameworks, which include many sustainable fish products. Available products include: multiple species of fish such as oily fish; uncoated fish, fish fingers and prawns. Details of the frameworks are available from Pro5 website: www.pro5.org.” Sustainable Fish City investigated the contracts published on the Pro5 website and found that fish sustainability information was either not available, or not a prerequisite of contract criteria in three of the four food contracts listed. Additionally, in the case of tuna, whilst ‘dolphin friendly’ tuna was available, this is not a sustainability standard, and may still involve fishing methods destructive to other wildlife. Sustainable Fish City has therefore complained to the Department for Education, describing the department’s reassurances to concerned citizens as “irresponsible misinformation”. Read the full complaint at: www.sustainweb.org/resources/files/reports/dfe_fish_letter_of_complaint_05-02-13_FINAL.pdf
4. In June 2011, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) issued mandatory ‘Government Buying Standards’ for food, covering one third of public sector catering in the UK, in Central Government. This includes food for government departments, MPs, Whitehall, Number 10, HM prisons and some parts of the armed forces. This does not cover school food – another third of public sector food spend. See: http://sd.defra.gov.uk/documents/GBS-guidance-food.pdf
5. In June 2011, McDonald’s committed to using only Marine Stewardship Council certified sustainable fish in its Filet o’ Fish fish-burger products, see: www.sustainweb.org/sustainablefishcity/fish_news/jun11_mcdonalds_to_use_only_sustainable_fish/
6. Whiskas is the leading cat food brand in the UK. In March 2011, the manufacturer of Whiskas and Sheba cat food committed to using only sustainable fish, Read the announcement at: www.sustainweb.org/sustainablefishcity/people/?pp=57
7. About 4,100 schools out of a total of 28,423 schools in the UK (i.e. about 14 per cent of the UK total) have Marine Stewardship Council chain of custody. The Marine Stewardship Council (www.msc.org) certifies sustainable fisheries and runs an ecolabel programme. Their “chain of custody” proves schools are serving sustainable fish and allows schools to display the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) ecolabel and participate in MSC Fish and Kids (www.fishandkids.org) educational activities to learn about precious marine fish and how to conserve them.
8. Examples of collaborative procurement contracts for school food that do specify robust fish sustainability standards include those run by the London Borough of Havering’s London buying consortium (covering six London Borough school meal contracts) and collaboration between the London Boroughs of Camden & Islington (covering two). See examples at: www.gfpp.org.uk