§ Mr. John Fraserasked the Secretary of State for Employment what percentage of days lost through strikes from 18th June, 1970, to 18th January, 1971, has been due to official strikes; and how this percentage compares with corresponding seven-month periods for 1968–69 and 1969–70.
§ Mr. BryanOfficial statistics of stoppages of work due to industrial disputes relate to calendar months and it is impracticable to extract figures for other periods. Figures for January, 1971, are not yet available. Provisional estimates are available for the last seven months of 1970 and these show that 18 per cent. of working days lost at establishments where disputes occurred were the result of stoppages known to have been official. The percentages for the corresponding periods in 1968 and 1969 were 25 and 16, respectively.
EMPLOYEE ACTIVITY RATES, 1965–69 Great Britain Scotland Difference from Great Britain Rates Males Females Total Males Females Total Males Females Total 1965 … 76.8 39.9 57.5 76.2 39.6 56.8 -0.6 -0.3 -0.7 1966 … 76.7 40.5 57.8 75.9 40.3 57.0 -0.8 -0.2 -0.8 1967 … 75.5 40.0 56.9 75.5 40.0 56.7 — — -0.2 1968 … 74.4 39.9 55.4 74.5 40.4 56.4 0.1 0.5 — 1969 … 73.5 40.2 56.1 74.3 40.9 56.6 0.8 0.7 0.5 These figures represent employees (including the registered unemployed) at mid-year expressed as percentages of the home population aged 15 and over. Because of changes in the definition of employees and in the methods of compiling national and regional employee estimates these figures are not comparable with those shown in Command Paper No. 2864.