Andy Burnham, newly sworn in as Prime Minister, has made ending rough sleeping his immediate priority, echoing a commitment he made upon becoming Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017. The timing coincides with the repeal of the 1824 Vagrancy Act, which had criminalized homelessness for over two centuries. However, rough sleeping in England reached record levels in autumn 2025, with 4,793 people sleeping rough on a single night, representing the fourth consecutive annual increase despite UK government spending on homelessness more than doubling over the past five years.
Burnham’s pledge draws parallels to earlier Labour initiatives, with former Prime Minister Tony Blair making a similar commitment in 1999, which his government nearly achieved before progress reversed under subsequent Conservative administrations. The challenge now lies in scaling interventions that showed promise at the local level. A report from IPPR North, published Monday alongside Crisis, predicts homelessness could rise by 25 percent to over 230,000 people by 2030 without decisive national action. The report recommends rolling out two Manchester-tested initiatives: the “A Bed Every Night” programme, which expanded emergency accommodation beyond those with statutory priority need, and Housing First, which provides stable housing to entrenched rough sleepers with high support needs.
As Prime Minister, Burnham now controls levers previously unavailable during his mayoral tenure, including welfare policy, immigration administration, and criminal justice oversight. These systemic factors significantly drive homelessness, from housing shortages to inadequate support for asylum seekers and prison leavers. However, experts caution that funding announced so far may prove insufficient. Scotland’s experience demonstrates the difficulty of matching ambitious homelessness legislation with adequate resources; despite progressive legal frameworks and Housing First programmes, rough sleeping has increased since lockdown.
The path forward requires balancing hyper-local coordination with national prevention strategies while addressing fundamental housing supply constraints. Burnham has outlined plans for the largest council housebuilding programme since the postwar period, though his predecessor faced significant obstacles achieving comparable housing targets. Successfully ending rough sleeping would require sustained political will, adequate funding, and coordination across multiple government departments to address interconnected causes ranging from affordable housing shortages to immigration policy effects.
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