New prime minister Andy Burnham has said that his first instruction on entering 10 Downing Street would be to ‘end rough sleeping in our country’.
Local and national government would work together to achieve this, he said, backed by an additional £340m funding for the government’s homelessness strategy over the next three years. The money will pay for 1,200 new homes, in an attempt to replicate the ‘Everyone In’ scheme that housed roughed sleepers during the COVID pandemic.
The government’s National Plan to End Homelessness had already aimed to halve long-term rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament. Late last month the government also decriminalised rough sleeping by repealing the Vagrancy Act, which had been on the statute books for nearly 200 years. The number of people who died while homelessness in 2024 stood at more than 1,600, with 43 per cent of the deaths related to drug or alcohol use.
Homelessness charity St Mungo’s said that Burnham’s ‘pledge to issue his first instruction in office on ending rough sleeping in Britain is a strong and welcome signal of intent, and we hope it marks the beginning of sustained, cross-government action. With over 76,000 households in England assessed as homeless or at risk of homelessness, and nearly 4,800 people estimated to be sleeping rough, there is significant work to do, requiring robust social, strategic and legislative change. We urge the new prime minister and his cabinet to take bold and decisive action in tackling homelessness, and to work with organisations on the frontline to ensure that lived experience is at the heart of effective and long-term change.’