NCIS handles all the interception warrants on behalf of those police forces, because each force makes only a small use of interception and because recording centres are hugely expensive and require specialist technical and linguistic staff to operate them. As I explained in responding to the earlier amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Hallam, communications data are a completely different means of gathering intelligence. I addressed the hon. He may disagree, in which case he will say so, but I rigorously defend the proposition that the widespread collection of communications data is less intrusive.
Every police force has a unit set up to process the requests.
The standard to which each unit operates is laid down nationally and backed up by a national training course. The communications industry has input to the data through the Association of Chief Police Officers telecommunications group, which holds regular meetings and has agreed a detailed framework of voluntary co-operation. That framework includes the standards that each party can expect of the other. For example, each police force has a single point of contact from which all requests for communications data must come, and the system has the confidence of the communications industry. To pass all police communications data requirements through NCIS would create an extra level of bureaucracy and would not add much value to the process.