Health committee  All I would say is that in terms of measuring effectiveness, it's still very early days for the signposting. We are beginning to measure what's happened on the salt awareness. We have tracked that and we do know where that's going, so I would agree with Deirdre, that has been a very effective one, but as the years go by there'll be different measures of effectiveness we can report on.

Health committee  It's very difficult to put actual costs to that basis, but what we have done is invest time and resources from the agency staff for meetings one to one, meetings with trade associations, follow-up discussions, stakeholder fora, and consultations. That we would see as part of our general way of doing business in the nutrition agenda.

Health committee  We're taking quite a broad definition of working in partnership. It is very much about encouraging others to take action where we can't actually make an impact. We don't manufacture any foods ourselves. We don't label it. But what we can do is help set the parameters that other people are working into.

Health committee  If I could just add to that, some of the other areas we're working on are around the promotion of foods to children and also the provision of foods or advice about foods in schools. So that's changing the environmental aspects in terms of children, being vulnerable groups, receiving messages about healthy eating or not.

Health committee  If I could just add to that, the whole area of fats and getting a better balance in people's diets with regard to fats is also a very important area for the agency. We will be going out to do consultation shortly with a package about reformulation and what can be done to help improve the level of saturated fat--by which I mean to reduce it--in the U.K.

Health committee  In the U.K. we also have a lot of detailed nutrition information on the back of the label, and the front-of-pack label is to work as a complement to that. Then somebody in a busy supermarket can see at a glance the key nutrients that are of most concern in the U.K., in terms of over-consumption.

Health committee  Yes, it is definitely the view. Also, I would say that if we can get the level of interest and engagement within a year, which has so far happened from different parts of industry, to adopt approaches to approve front-of-pack labelling and it's working voluntarily, then it does question whether we need to go straight to mandatories.

Health committee  The actual campaign started a few weeks ago. We are in the process of tracking the results of it and will have information toward the end of March on how that awareness is going. It's a phased approach, starting with television advertisements, and we now have advertising on bus shelters and on buses and there's information on the website.

Health committee  We're expecting to have the results of the first wave of awareness by the end of March.

Health committee  And that's agreed to on an EU-wide basis. That's an EU-wide activity. What we're talking about here is a voluntary approach within the U.K.

Health committee  It's just to say that the criteria by which the traffic light colours are defined have been published and are available, should any of the committee members want to the see the actual amounts that trigger whether something is high, medium, or low.

Health committee  Yes, I would add that another part of the evidence base is that we have had information from many of the retailers and manufacturers that are adopting either approach, actually, that it is encouraging their reformulation. So they're actually taking proactive approaches to ensure that when their products go onto the market in the first place, they have a better nutritional profile, and for those that are already on the market, they're looking to see what they can do to improve them by getting a shift in the colour coding or in the percentage.

Health committee  That's a very interesting approach. As I mentioned, we put a lot of store on working in partnerships. Rosemary has identified some of the retailers and manufacturers that are actually adopting the core approach that we've spoken about, but we also have a wide range of other groups, including health organizations, British medical associations, some of the royal colleges, that are actually putting their weight behind the approach of the four core principles.

Health committee  Thank you. As Deirdre said, one of our roles is to help improve diet and health in the U.K. Our aim is therefore to make it easier for consumers to choose a healthier diet to help to reduce diet-related disease, including obesity. I want to highlight that we are really working in three key areas: first, to raise awareness in people, consumers.