To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 11 June 2007, Official Report, column 876W, on obesity, if he will publish the findings of the core expert review group which validated the approach taken and outputs to date; who the members of the core expert review group are; and how often the group has met since 2005. (155123)

The key findings underpinning the social marketing work are published in the MRC Human Nutrition Research Centre's report, “The Healthy Living Social Marketing initiative: A review of the evidence”. Details of the group members are on Page 1 of the report. The group has met on three occasions since 2005.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 11 June 2007, Official Report, column 876W, on obesity, if he will give details of the new strategy building on Choosing Activity; what progress has been made on it to date; and what steps he intends to take in furthering this strategy. (155124)

The work led by Ministers on a new strategy for physical activity will be taken forward as part of our wider work on obesity, nutrition and physical activity, which will be the subject of further announcements in the autumn. These will include details of national campaigns focusing on these areas.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 11 June 2007, Official Report, column 876W, on obesity, if he will give details of the 5 a Day Top Tips for Top Mums campaign; how he intends to take forward work on the initiative; how much has been spent from the public purse on it; how much has been set aside for the initiative in total; and how he plans to measure the initiative’s success. (155125)

The “Top Tips for Top Mums” campaign aims to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in families with young children and has a particular focus on low-income families. This audience faces the most barriers to increase fruit and vegetable consumption including cost, lack of cooking skills, fussy eaters and a lack of structured mealtimes. “Top Tips for Top Mums” has been developed to show parents that helping their children to eat more fruit and vegetables is a healthy option and easier than they may think.

To take the campaign forward, we are working with our existing “5 a Day” stakeholders and engaging with new partners to support the campaign. We are developing new radio and TV fillers which will help to promote the ideas of the Top Tips campaign and encourage fruit and vegetable consumption. The fillers are planned to go live in November 2007 and are expected to achieve at least £4 million pounds worth of free advertising space over a three-year period. New web pages will launch on the “5 a Day” website to coincide with the launch of the TV and radio fillers, and will incorporate a mechanism for parents to upload and share their own Top Tips with others.

To date, we have spent approximately £481,000 on the “Top Tips for Top Mums” campaign including activity to support partnership marketing, public relations (PR) aimed at both the national and local media and on website development.

The production of the TV and radio fillers will cost £300,000 and a further £300,000 has been committed to extend the campaign initiative into 2008 to recruit key partnerships, and sustain high profile PR and media activity to promote awareness of the campaign.

We track changes in consumption in fruit and vegetables in different population groups using the Food Standards Agency Consumer Activity Survey and the Health Survey for England.