Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, how many visits were made by Ministers of her Department to Torbay constituency in the 12 months to October 2014; whom the invitation for each such visit was issued by; and what the cost to the public purse was of each such visit.
Answered by Theresa Villiers
None. I visited Torbay in April 2014 but this was a political visit which was arranged and paid for by the Conservative Party.
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, how many interception warrants were (a) issued, (b) declined and (c) cancelled by her Department under (i) section 8(1) and (ii) section 8(4) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 in the last six months for which figures are available.
Answered by Theresa Villiers
The Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Anthony May, publishes statistics on the total number of interception warrants authorised annually. His 2013 Annual Report states that 2760 interception warrants were authorised in 2013 (under both sections 8(1) and 8(4) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000), a reduction of 19% on the same figure for 2012, and that 1669 such warrants were extant on 31st December 2013. As a matter of longstanding practice we do not provide more detailed breakdowns of statistics relating to interception warrants.