§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how much his Department has spent on advertising of the dangers of(a) smoking, (b) poor diet and (c) alcohol in each year since 1997. [158219]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonPrior to 1999–2000 the Health Education Authority ran the public education campaign on the dangers of smoking. The Department of Health took over this work in December 1999.
The figures in the table show advertising expenditure on the dangers of smoking from 1999–2000 to date.
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Expenditure (£ million) 1999–2000 6.18 2000–01 8.97 2001–02 7.79 2002–03 7.88 2003–04 17.76 There has been no expenditure by the Department on advertising the dangers of poor diet or alcohol during this period.
However, the Department is taking action to ensure that people have access to healthy diets. In 2002–03, funding for the Department of Health-led programmes aimed at improving children's diet totalled £140.98 million and the Food Standards Agency has provided £0.58 million. An additional £9.83 million has been provided to support a range of projects, including community based programmes.
In addition to the above, local nutrition initiatives are funded through health action zones, sure start, healthy living centres and through general funding allocations to health authorities and primary care trusts, on which information is not collected centrally. The Department has also funded health promotion work in these areas from centrally held budgets, including campaign literature, helpline and website advice. Local national health service agencies are responsible for local health promotion work. The funds they spend on this work form part of their general budgets and no breakdown of these funds is centrally available.
The Government's alcohol harm reduction strategy for England was published on 15 March 2004. It contains recommendations for action to improve Government communications on alcohol misuse, including the ways in which the Government inform the public of the dangers of alcohol misuse. The Department will be leading the work on taking these recommendations forward.