Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many interception warrants were issued under (a) section 8(1) and (b) section 8(4) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 in each day in 2014.

The Interception of Communications Commissioner publishes statistics on the number of interception warrants. The Commissioner’s report for 2014 states that the total number of warrants issued during 2014 (under both sections 8(1) and 8(4) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) was 2795.The total number of extant warrants on 31 December 2014 was 1605. Of the 1605 warrants, 20 were issued under section 8(4). As a matter of longstanding practice, we do not provide more detailed breakdowns of statistics relating to interception warrants.