Andy Burnham used his first day as prime minister to promise that the government will end long-term rough sleeping across the UK. On 20 July 2026, he visited a London homelessness charity before giving his first speech as prime minister in Downing Street.

Before his speech, Burnham visited The Passage, a homelessness charity in Victoria, central London. In his speech he also set out a cost-of-living plan that he said would start the next day. Burnham became prime minister earlier that day when King Charles III invited him to form a government. He got the job through a party leadership change, not a general election — which is the usual process when the governing party picks a new leader mid-term.

The government said the first steps of its plan will involve helping people who have been sleeping rough for a long time to move into secure housing, including buying suitable homes. A press release on gov.uk was headlined: "New PM says government can bring back hope to Britain, and launches drive to end rough sleeping at the earliest opportunity." In it, Burnham said: "For too long, we've been told that ending rough sleeping will take decades or even that it's impossible."

The pledge comes at a difficult moment. The latest official figures estimated 4,793 people sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025 in England. That is a record high, and the fourth year in a row the number has gone up.

Burnham pointed to his time as mayor of Greater Manchester, where he said rough sleeping was "down significantly" since he took office. He highlighted the region's "A Bed Every Night" scheme, which he said provided 600 beds every night. The Greater Manchester numbers, though, tell a more complicated story. The count of people seen sleeping rough on a single night was 268 in 2017, fell to 149 in 2023, then rose slightly to 154 in autumn 2024. The Manchester Mill reported that the figure went up again to 197 in 2025 — also a fourth year of rising numbers locally.

Burnham also mentioned the Everyone In scheme from the Covid-19 pandemic, when thousands of rough sleepers across England were given emergency accommodation. That programme was widely seen as the most successful effort to tackle street homelessness in recent decades. It was wound down as pandemic protections came to an end.

The pledge also echoes past politics. Burnham's promise is similar to one made by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who said he would provide 8,000 homes immediately for people with a history of rough sleeping if Labour won power. The comparison matters in Westminster because Burnham and Corbyn came from different wings of the Labour Party, but on this issue their plans are largely the same.

A previous government promise from September 2022 put £2 billion over three years towards tackling homelessness and rough sleeping, under the heading "Ending Rough Sleeping For Good." It is not yet clear from the 20 July announcements whether that money was fully spent, or whether Burnham's new plan builds on or replaces it.

The government also confirmed in a separate announcement on 28 June that it would repeal the Vagrancy Act on Monday 29 June 2026. The Vagrancy Act is a law from 1824 that makes rough sleeping and begging a criminal offence. Homelessness charities and politicians from several parties had long called for its repeal, but successive governments had delayed it.

Rough sleeping policy in the UK is partly devolved. That means some decisions are made by the UK government in London, but others are made by separate governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The official statistics cited by the government cover England only. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland collect their own figures separately. Burnham's pledge was described as UK-wide, but making it happen in the devolved nations will depend on working with those governments — Holyrood in Scotland, the Senedd in Wales, and Stormont in Northern Ireland.

The broader context here is about scale and timing. Rough sleeping in England is at a record high, rising for the fourth year running, and a new prime minister has chosen to make it a priority within hours of taking office. That recalls the momentum behind the Everyone In response in 2020. The difference is that Everyone In was an emergency measure during a national crisis. Burnham is presenting his pledge as a long-term plan made in normal political conditions. Whether buying homes and repealing the Vagrancy Act together add up to a real plan that works, or whether they are signals ahead of a more detailed strategy, will be the test for ministers and homelessness organisations in the weeks ahead.