There was a record low number of strikes in Britain last year, new figures have shown.

Office for National Statistics data released on Thursday revealed that less than 500,000 working were days lost to industrial action in 2003.

This was made up of just 133 strikes, with around 150,000 employees walking out of work.

In contrast 1.3 million days were lost in 2002, but the provisional figure for the first three months of this year suggests 2003 may have been a one-off.

Approximately 372,000 days were lost between January and March, which if continued for the rest of the year, would herald a return to 2002 levels.

So far this decade the average number of days lost is higher than in the 1990s, when the level was at 660,000.

But it still compares favourably with the 7.2 million of the 1980s and 12.9 million in the 1970s.