asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons convicted in respect of offences allegedly committed in the civil disturbances of 1981 have appealed against their conviction on the grounds that the court had acted improperly in accepting an apparent plea of guilty as an unequivocal one.

The information requested could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The information readily available on the outcome of arrests during the serious incidents of public disorder in July and August 1981 is published in Home Office Statistical Bulletin 20/82.