asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish his estimate of the number of unofficial stoppages of work resulting from trade and industrial disputes in each of the past five years; and what percentage this is of all stoppages known to his Department for each year.

Separate figures are compiled of the number of stoppages of work due to industrial disputes which are known to be official, and this information is published regularly in the Department of Employment Gazette. It is not known whether all the remaining stop-pages are unofficial, but it is likely that the majority would be in that category.The available information is as follows: