Andy Burnham stood outside Downing Street on Monday and delivered his first pledge as prime minister: to end rough sleeping in England. “I’m announcing this government’s commitment to finally end long-term rough sleeping across the UK at the earliest opportunity,” he said. The promise came with an additional £340m over three years – equivalent to £113m a year – drawn from unused parts of the housing department’s budget.
The money will pay for 1,200 new homes and support 3,000 people over five years, officials said, adding to the previous government’s £3.5bn homelessness strategy that aimed to halve long-term rough sleeping. Burnham’s announcement aims to replicate the “Everyone In” policy briefly enacted during Covid and the schemes he rolled out as mayor of Greater Manchester.
“Andy Burnham pledges £340m to end rough sleeping in England in his first act as prime minister, replicating Greater Manchester schemes.”
In an email to Labour members shortly after his speech, Burnham wrote: “We are going to end rough sleeping in this country at the first opportunity. People have told me it would take decades. Some say it’s impossible. I’m not having that.” He called it an example of “Manchesterism” – bringing the approach he used as mayor to the rest of the UK. As mayor, he made ending rough sleeping a priority in 2017, hoping to eradicate it by 2020. While that target was missed, numbers are still down significantly on a decade ago.
The pledge was welcomed by homelessness campaigners, who said it could be met with enough money and political will. But critics greeted it with scepticism, pointing out that street homelessness rose during four years of Burnham’s mayoralty. The announcement echoes one planned by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2023, who had intended to make a similar pledge on his first day as prime minister.
Burnham’s first day also included a promise on the cost of living, with more detail due tomorrow on the “breathing space” he is offering hard-pressed families. Extending Manchester’s £2 bus fare cap – different from the £3 cap under Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves – is one possible step. With energy prices rising again, action may follow. Miatta Fahnbulleh, the former head of the New Economic Foundation think tank, has spent weeks working on policy options.
The housing secretary who oversaw the previous £3.5bn strategy, Steve Reed, was sacked on Monday as Burnham began forming his cabinet. The new prime minister’s early moves signal what kind of leader he intends to be – but the question of whether the rough sleeping pledge will meet the same fate as his earlier mayoral ambition remains unanswered.