Since 5 October 2015, large shops in England have been required by law to charge 5p for all single-use plastic carrier bags. They are required by law to report certain information to Defra, and they provide other information on a voluntary basis.

These publications summarise the data collected by Defra for:

• the second year – from 7 April 2017 to 6 April 2018
• the first full year – from 7 April 2016 to 6 April 2017
• the first 6 month reporting period – from 5 October 2015 to 6 April 2016

We publish the full datasets on data.gov.uk including:

• Single-use plastic carrier bags charge, England methodological summary (2017-18)
• Single-use plastic carrier bags charge, England data (2016-18)

These annual reports summarise the work of the Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF) from 2015 to 2017.

The Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF) provides independent advice to the government on the monitoring of pesticide residues in food.

You can read more information about the work of the Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF).

A compendium of rural urban statistics on a wide range of social and economic Government policy areas.

The latest edition of the Digest is for September 2018 and includes updates to:

• Accessibility to services – overall measure of accessibility to services
• Housing
• Deprivation
• Innovation

Related information:

• Rural economy – statistical indicators
• Rural living – statistical indicators
• Local level data sets

Rural transport and travel

Differences in travel behaviour, levels of mobility and access to services for people living in different settlement types.

Metadata

Indicators:

• travel behaviour
• distance travelled
• car and bus availability
• overall measure of accessibility of services

Data Source: Department for Transport – National Travel Survey

Coverage: England

Rural classification used: Office for National Statistics Rural Urban Classification

Rural accessibility to services

Measuring accessibility by the time taken to travel to particular service locations.

Metadata

Indicators:

• the number of key service locations and the percentage of people with ‘reasonable’ access by using public transport /walking and car

Data source: Department for Transport core accessibility indicators at Lower Super Output Area level

Coverage: England

Rural classification used: Office for National Statistics Rural Urban Classification

Additional information:

• Department for Transport travel time, destination and origin indicators to key sites and services, by Lower Super Output Area
• Rural services statistical series