Can we “believe” Burnham’s promise to end rough sleeping?

I can understand why Andy Burnham put on all this choreography today, cheered at Number 10 by a cheering crowd as if he had won an election rather than being the beneficiary of a putsch. “Let’s make this the moment when Britain begins to believe “Again,” he said today. More Ted Lasso than Barack Obama. But I can understand why so many people don’t believe or take this charade seriously. We’ve seen the new Prime Minister’s show, heard those speeches outside Number 10 before. And we have learned to ask ourselves: will this one be different? Can we trust what they say? When they talk, is it just noise – or do they mean it?

With Boris Johnson, it was noise. With Tony Blair, this was reflected: he was careful not to promise what he could not keep. And Burnham? His first firm commitment in his speech to No. 10 was to say that he “I will soon walk through that door behind me and give my first instruction to end rough sleeping in our country.

My heart sank at these words. A beautiful feeling, but an unforgettable commitment. He knows this because it’s a pledge he made and broke when he ran for Manchester mayor in 2017: to end rough sleeping by 2020. Rather than thinking about why he promised something he didn’t deliver in Manchester, he’s now repeating the bet nationally.

In 2017, the number of people living rough increased in Greater Manchester. Burnham vowed to eliminate him. “Within three years, and if we can get it done sooner, no one should have to spend a night on the streets,” he said in 2017. Here’s what happened:

It therefore fell, but now stands at 197 in last year’s survey – after double since Burnham’s first assault in 2017. So it’s not a resounding success. But that’s still some 26% less than its peak in 2017. Here’s how other cities have done since.

The fall in Manchester was greater than anywhere else. In the Greater Manchester region, made up of ten local authorities, the number of people living rough has fallen by 26%: but this has not stopped. It has actually increased at Trafford, Oldham and Stockport.

The other percentage change is for smaller numbers. Liverpool went from 33 to 35 homeless people in the same period, Birmingham from 57 to 68, Leeds from 28 to 65 and Newcastle from 10 to 46. Manchester City itself went from 94 to 55. These comparisons require caution: ‘Greater Manchester’ is a sprawling city-region of three million people, while the others are individual local authorities. Each number is an estimate for a particular night. Greater Manchester’s rate in 2025 was around 6.5 per 100,000 people, below the English rate of 8.2

People sleep rough for a whole bunch of deeply complicated reasons, and the combination matters if we want to understand why an instruction from a minister doesn’t touch it. People sleep rough for domestic and institutional reasons, not financial ones. Usually the breakdown of a relationship; being asked to leave by family members or friends. This could be the end of a private tenancy or (as I wrote last week) eviction from a prison, care system, hospital ward, etc.

Poor mental health and addiction are largely the cause, both a cause and a consequence of rough sleeping. Half of people seen sleeping rough in London last year had a need for mental health support, almost a third had a drug problem and more than a quarter had an alcohol problem – and a third had more than one of these three, according to the CHAIN database, the most detailed record we have.

This is why it is difficult to order its stopping. A bed is rarely the complete solution. Deep-seated needs are not resolved by a single night indoors; they require continuous and comprehensive support, which is expensive and slow. Many people are refusing the collective housing on offer – one of the reasons given by Burnham himself for failing to meet his 2020 target – and the lack of settled housing means those who enter their homes can cycle back to the streets.

THE Heriot-Watt University Review of his flagship A bed every night The program credited it with a “major contribution” to the 2017-2020 reduction, but also flagged evictions, poor outcomes data and a lack of permanent housing to accommodate people as serious weaknesses. And for the growing share of homeless people who are not British, the “no recourse to public funds” rule prohibits local councils from offering benefits or housing – a legal wall that no mayor or prime minister can wish to lift. Around a quarter of the homeless in England – and more than half of those in London – are immigrants. So why, knowing this, did he commit to making his untouchable goal of Manchester a national instruction?

Burnham’s record at Manchester is creditable: as I say in The timesa promissory note. But it has not, and cannot, end life on the streets. If he had promised to reduce the number in England from 4,500 to 3,000, I would be impressed. But to end it? He couldn’t do it then and he can’t do it now. So why repeat a commitment he knows he will have to break? Or should we take what he says and discount it by three-quarters? Is there a Boris 4x exaggeration factor?

I hope Burnham doesn’t make a habit of this. We have had years of noise, of jokes, of fairy tales, of festivals of good intentions – which breed disappointment. As Health Secretary, Matt Hancock used to talk about a BHAG, an ambitious target: if you tell the system to abolish rough sleeping, it could cut it by a quarter. But why repeat this to the public? Ed Miliband’s dishonest and unachievable pledge to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2030 is eroding public trust.

Burnham won’t make Britain “believe” – ​​the country has had enough prime ministers proposing ten-year plans (Starmer actually had nine ten-year plans; Boris had six). He will have to talk until delivery. His overhaul looks good: Healey is a big improvement over Reeves; McFadden and Mahmood remain in place to continue their reforms. I can imagine a world in which Burnham keeps his promises – if he can shed his mayoral skin. So let’s hope the pledge to sleep rough is the last unfulfillable promise he makes.