The Home Office has made the Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Relevant Public Authorities) Regulations 2026, a narrowly drawn statutory instrument signed by Dan Jarvis, Minister of State, on 15 April 2026. The instrument was laid before Parliament on 20 April 2026 and will come into force on 11 May 2026. Its legal effect is straightforward. It amends Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 by deleting five ambulance service entries from the list of bodies treated as relevant public authorities for Part 3 communications data powers.
According to the explanatory note to the Regulations, Schedule 4 is the part of the 2016 Act that identifies which public authorities, other than local authorities, may obtain communications data under Part 3. The Schedule also records the statutory purposes for which those powers may be used, the categories of communications data that may be sought, the level of senior officer who may authorise a request, and the circumstances in which an authorisation may be given. Once an authority is removed from that table, it no longer has that specific statutory route. This instrument therefore reduces, rather than expands, the number of public bodies able to use Part 3 communications data powers.
The authorities removed are East Midlands Ambulance Service, North West Ambulance Service, South East Coast Ambulance Service, West Midlands Ambulance Service, and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust. No replacement bodies are added by this instrument, and no changes are made to the remaining entries in Schedule 4. The Regulations extend to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but the practical amendment is focused on named ambulance services in England and Northern Ireland. The text does not alter the status of other listed public authorities.
The legislative note is also clear about what has not changed. The instrument does not create a new investigatory power, does not widen eligibility, and does not recast the broader authorisation framework in Part 3. Its operative provision is limited to omitting the five specified entries from the Schedule. That matters for interpretation. In policy terms, this is a restriction on access to an existing mechanism for obtaining communications data, not a fresh surveillance measure.
For the services affected, the compliance consequence is immediate and date-specific. From 11 May 2026, internal policies, authorisation templates and any staff guidance that still refer to Part 3 Schedule 4 access will need to reflect the fact that the direct power has been removed. In practical terms, any operational need to secure communications data after that date will have to be considered through whatever other lawful channels remain available, rather than through the authority previously conferred by Schedule 4. The Regulations themselves do not set out those alternative routes; they simply remove the listed bodies from the existing one.
The explanatory note states that no full impact assessment has been prepared because no, or no significant, effects on the private, voluntary or public sectors are anticipated. That indicates the Home Office regards the amendment as administratively limited, even though it carries clear consequences for the organisations removed from the Schedule. The instrument also sits within a longer sequence of technical amendments to Schedule 4, which the note says was substituted in 2018 and later updated in 2020, 2022 and 2025, alongside related changes made through the Armed Forces Act 2021. Read in that context, the 2026 Regulations are best understood as a targeted revision to the statutory list of authorities permitted to obtain communications data under the 2016 Act.