Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many joint search warrants have been applied for by the police and another applicant and issued by the courts in England and Wales in the last five years; and who the other applicant was in each such case.

HMCTS does not collate this information centrally. Warrants of entry are issued by Magistrates’ courts and each Magistrates court that issues warrants maintains the data associated with it in a manual log. Courts are required to hold warrants issued for a period of three years. Only manual checks at every magistrates’ court could answer this request, and even then only for the last three years. This would incur disproportionate costs.