New Prime Minister makes huge national commitment on the steps of Downing Street, despite failing to keep a similar promise in the North
Andy Burnham arriving in Downing Street as Prime Minister (Image: Getty)
Andy Burnham used his first speech as Prime Minister to vow an end to rough sleeping across Britain – despite presiding over a homelessness crisis that nearly doubled on his own doorstep as mayor of Manchester.
The new Labour leader pledged to wipe out rough sleeping nationwide as he formally took office, having won the race to be PM by being the only candidate standing.
But it is a promise he has broken before. Back in 2017, as mayor of Greater Manchester, Mr Burnham vowed to end rough sleeping in the city entirely by 2020.
Just two years later, in 2019, he was forced to admit he would miss his own target.
Official government statistics now lay bare the scale of his failure, revealing that rough sleeping in his own backyard has climbed relentlessly, year after year, ever since.
The number of rough sleepers in Greater Manchester stood at 90 in 2021. It then rose to 102 in 2022, 149 in 2023, 154 in 2024 – before soaring to a staggering 197 last year.
Across Greater Manchester’s 10 boroughs, there were around 360 rough sleepers this March, up from 335 just 12 months earlier.
The rate of rough sleeping in the region now stands at 13.1 people per 100,000, almost double the 6.9 recorded back in 2022.
In other words, homelessness in the very city Mr Burnham once ran has nearly doubled since he vowed to wipe it out for good.
Mr Burnham has faced fierce criticism for dodging scrutiny during his tilt at the Labour leadership.
He refused interviews with the mainstream media, instead opting to be quizzed by footballer Gary Lineker. When challenged by this newsaper over his flip-flopping stance on Brexit, he simply ran away.
Yet speaking as he took office on Monday, the new Prime Minister promised a “new plan for Britain – a 10-year plan” to be unveiled later this year.
Speaking to Sky News shortly before the policy was announced, Mr Burnham said: “The problem was down significantly from when I came in as mayor in Greater Manchester, some of the issues that you mentioned were out of our control.
“But what I learned was we ran a scheme every night, 600 beds, called A Bed Every Night, and we funded it through various different ways. But we were the only place that was doing it. And you won’t be able to get the numbers down if you’re the only place.
“So it taught me that the only way is to do this together, everybody pulling together, everyone in, as we did in the pandemic, because we did bring people in in the pandemic… We did it then, get the basics right, put a care for people at the heart of everything we do and get this country working as it should again.”