New prime minister Andy Burnham starts with vow to end rough sleeping. Here’s how he aims to do it

New prime minister Andy Burnham has said his first action in 10 Downing Street will be to start efforts to end rough sleeping in the UK.

Burnham took over from Keir Starmer on Monday (20 July) and set out his vision for Britain in a speech on Downing Street after meeting King Charles at Buckingham Palace.

The former Greater Manchester mayor told the nation that politicians had “not been good enough” and needed to “raise their game” in his first address.

Burnham set out his first actions as prime minister with announcements to address the cost of living to follow tomorrow after he has assembled his new cabinet.

But, before all that, Burnham said he would launch efforts to address rough sleeping in the UK.

“We will help people to live well. Building a more preventative state. Investing in people’s success rather than paying for failure rather than paying for failure,” said Burnham.

“And that work starts now. I will soon go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction: to end rough sleeping in our country.”

Minutes after Burnham entered Number 10, the government announced an additional £340m to tackle rough sleeping in Britain.

It is “new funding” from uncommitted budgets in the ministry of housing, communities and local government and is expected to support at least 3,000 people who are currently sleeping rough over five years.

Reacting to Burnham’s pledge to end rough sleeping, Lord John Bird, the founder of the Big Issue, said: “This is a prime minister with his priorities straight.

“I’m also encouraged to hear his intention to build a more preventative state. This will be crucial if he truly wants to eradicate rough sleeping for good.”

Burnham’s focus on homelessness could be a “turning point” in tackling the issue, according to Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis.

“It is absolutely fantastic to see that, just minutes into his new job as prime minister, Andy Burnham is prioritising tackling homelessness – committing to end rough sleeping across the country as his ‘first instruction’ to his new government,” said Downie.

“Rough sleeping is a moral stain on our country; a normalised emergency born out of years of chronic underinvestment in support services and a failure to build new social homes at anywhere close to the scale required.  

“Andy Burnham now has the potential to rewrite the norms on tackling homelessness and end rough sleeping once and for all.”

Dr Maya Singer Hobbs, IPPR senior research fellow and author of a recent IPPR report that warned homelessness could rise 25% by the end of the decade unless Burnham took action, added: “Homelessness is the most visible sign of our crumbling public services. The prime minister’s commitment to end rough sleeping as his first instruction shows that he is taking seriously the challenge he faces.”

How many people are rough sleeping in the UK?

It is perhaps an indication of the size of the task nationally that Starmer’s government opted to set the target of halving rough sleeping by 2029 in the homelessness strategy they published last year.

The Conservative government had previously pledged to end rough sleeping by 2024 and fallen well short.

The government’s official rough sleeping snapshot counted a record number of people sleeping rough in England in autumn 2025.

The annual figures, which are based on single-night local authority counts and estimates, found 4,793 were sleeping rough in England last year, higher than any other point on record.

Rough sleeping in London is counted by the Combined Homelessness and Information Network, which is considered more accurate than official counts as it tracks rough sleeping over time rather than a single-night count.

A total of 12,938 people were spotted sleeping rough by frontline homelessness workers in London in 2025-26, down 2% on record-high statistics recorded a year before.

Homelessness is devolved in Scotland and Wales.

In Scotland, 1,083 households reported rough sleeping during the three months before they applied to councils for homelessness support while 784 households applicants reported rough sleeping the night before as of September 2025.

In Wales, an estimated 143 people were sleeping rough across the country as of March 2026.

Read more:

• Here’s what Andy Burnham can do right away to address homelessness and NEETs crisis
• Nationalisation, buses and homes for rough sleepers: This is what Andy Burnham’s Britain will look like
• Why homelessness is rising in Finland – and what Britain can learn

How Burnham will address rough sleeping in the UK

Andy Burnham has earned praise for his focus on addressing homelessness and rough sleeping in Greater Manchester.

But he hasn’t been able to eradicate it completely in the city region.

Burnham took inspiration from Finland’s success to introduce a Housing First philosophy to Greater Manchester.

The Housing First model sees rough sleepers given a home alongside intensive support for as long as they need to keep it. The Finns took that wider: ensuring that the offer of a home was the first step for anyone at risk of homelessness.

Burnham has already spoken of the security of a good home and a Housing First philosophy being part of his plans as prime minister.

While Greater Manchester mayor, Burnham also introduced A Bed Every Night Scheme.

That made the offer of a bed and personal support the default response to anyone sleeping rough or at risk of sleeping rough in Greater Manchester.

Burnham also donated 15% of his mayoral salary to efforts to tackle homelessness across the region.

A Bed Every Night initially saw rough sleeping fall across Greater Manchester before the Covid pandemic but numbers have increased in recent years.

The number of people sleeping rough in 2017 was 268 across Greater Manchester and that almost halved to 149 by 2023. But by the time Labour came to power, figures were up 3% to 154 in autumn 2024 and then 197 by 2025.

Burnham argued that national decisions were impacting his ability to prevent rough sleeping in Manchester.

“As Greater Manchester mayor, his A Bed Every Night initiative put human dignity first,” said Crisis’ Downie. “The whole premise of the policy was that a decent society simply should not let people sleep rough.

“Through the right partnerships, investment, and a focus on individual needs and long-term support, the policy helped drive down rates of rough sleeping despite difficult circumstances created by decisions made at the national level – which he now has the opportunity to change. ”

Now his first address as prime minister signalled his intention to take action nationally.

Burnham said: “For too long, we’ve been told that ending rough sleeping will take decades or even that it’s impossible. I’m not having that. This is something a government can fix if it chooses to. Today, I’m choosing to.”

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