How Wales is showing the way for England on homelessness with one simple change

The 50th anniversary of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act (1977) in a couple of years’ time will be an opportunity to reflect on groundbreaking legislation, which for the first time gave local authorities a general duty to house people who are homeless. With equivalent laws in Scotland and Northern Ireland, it provides a safety net for people in the UK who are homeless – or more accurately – a safety net for some.

Approaching the anniversary, one element we believe requires urgent revision to address rising homelessness is known as priority need. Put simply, it means some people do not receive help to find a home. Thankfully, there is hope that Wales might soon follow Scotland in abolishing this outdated measure, placing additional pressure on the UK government to take similar action.

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From the beginning, to manage demand, the housing duty in the 1977 act had limitations. For example, even if a person meets all other requirements, councils only have to house those who fit into one of a number of categories – such as someone who is pregnant or living with children, or someone vulnerable for a number of specified reasons whom the law considers to be in priority need. Councils are not required to find a permanent home for people who do not fall into one of these or certain other categories, whatever their other needs might be.

In England, the priority need restriction is still firmly in place. As homelessness has risen over time, The Salvation Army has seen the harm that it has done, making it hard for some groups of people – such as, but far from uniquely, single men – to get the help they need. Official homelessness figures for England showed that in the fourth quarter of 2024, 27% of council decisions about whether they had a duty to help produced a refusal on the grounds that the person was not in ‘priority need’. That’s 7,200 people turned away in 92 days, the equivalent of one person every 18 minutes.

To the person, priority need can mean the ineffable trauma of having to sleep rough with all the danger and uncertainty that entails, not to mention feeling alone and locked out of support. To governments it has become a barrier to ending rough sleeping. It doesn’t have to be like this.

Scotland abolished priority need in 2012 using devolved powers. Admittedly this led to an unintended and severe increase in pressure on temporary accommodation that the country is still grappling with. But it was and is still widely recognised as the right decision in principle. In Wales, a 2023 white paper on homelessness announced the Welsh government’s intention to abolish priority need – but to do it over time, allowing the establishment of services and resources required to make it work. We hope that a homelessness bill, to be introduced in the Senedd later this week, will translate that intention into law.

We think the Welsh model of abolition over time could be a way forward for England. Wales has extended priority need to people who are ‘street homeless’– a wide definition that includes those who are at risk of having to sleep rough as well as those who actually are. The Salvation Army is calling for England to follow this lead, and also extend priority need to people who are survivors of modern slavery in the same way that it already applies to people who have survived domestic violence. We want to see England commit to abolishing priority need within a decade. Sustained investment and more housing, especially homes for social rent, would be needed to respond to increasing numbers of people experiencing homelessness. But that commitment is needed urgently regardless of specific asks: decades of chronic underinvestment in Britain’s housing stock has helped create the housing crisis we live with today.

Of course, abolishing priority need in Wales and elsewhere is not a panacea to end homelessness, it is part of the solution. Swapping the street for an indefinite stay in temporary accommodation might, if you’re lucky, be a step up but creates its own problems. But Wales has shown England the way in homelessness legislation before now. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which gave English councils a duty to relieve and prevent homelessness for everybody, regardless of priority, was directly inspired by the Housing (Wales) Act 2014.

Almost 50 years on from that landmark 1977 Act we hope and pray that soon everyone who needs a home can be helped to find one. If, as expected, Wales abolishes priority need it will be another important step towards achieving that goal in all three nations.

Andrew Connell is The Salvation Army’s homelessness policy lead for Wales and Jez Bushnell is the charity’s homelessness policy lead for England and Scotland.

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