“(1) A justice of the peace may issue a warrant authorising an officer of a local housing authority who is named in the warrant to enter premises in England that are specified in the warrant if the justice of the peace is satisfied, on written information on oath given by that officer—

(a) that the officer would, in entering the premises, be acting in the course of employment by, or on the instructions of, the local housing authority, and

(b) that there are reasonable grounds for believing that—

(i) the premises are occupied by a relevant person for the purposes of a rental sector business,

(ii) the premises are not used wholly or mainly as residential accommodation,

(iii) on the premises there are documents which an officer of the local housing authority could require a person to produce under section (Power to require production of documents following entry), or could seize under section (Power to seize documents following entry), and

(iv) condition A, B or C is met.

(2) Condition A is that—

(a) access to the premises has been or is likely to be refused, and

(b) notice of the local housing authority’s intention to apply for a warrant under this section has been given to an occupier of the premises.

(3) Condition B is that it is likely that documents on the premises would be concealed or interfered with if notice of entry of the premises were given to an occupier of the premises.

(4) Condition C is that no occupier is present, and it might defeat the purpose of the entry to wait for their return.

(5) In this section “rental sector business” has the meaning given by section (

This new clause allows local housing authorities to obtain a warrant to enter by force premises that are occupied for the purposes of a rental sector business in order to obtain documents for purposes connected with their functions under the “rented accommodation legislation” as defined in NC25.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.