Andy Burnham unveils first coverage as he lastly enters No10 as Prime Minister
Labour leader Andy Burnham, the former Greater Manchester Mayor who has now taken over from Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, has laid out his first instruction to his Government
Andy Burnham(Image: Getty Images)
Andy Burnham has said his first instruction to his Government as Prime Minister will be to “end rough sleeping in our country”.
Just hours before formally becoming the UK’s new leader on Monday (July 20), he visited homelessness charity The Passage in Victoria, central London. He said his visit was the “best place to start” ahead of his premiership, visiting such a charity to see “the lives that are being turned around”.
Speaking in Downing Street, in his first speech as PM, he said: “We will help people to live well, building a more preventative state, investing in people’s success rather than paying for failure.
Burnham actively helped out during his homeless charity visit(Image: Getty Images)
“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.”
Under his mayorship, Greater Manchester ran “A Bed Every Night” programme – to which he pledged to donate at least 15% of his salary – to help bring rough sleepers in off the streets.
But official figures published in 2025 by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority showed that rough sleeping rose during his time there. The number of people seen sleeping rough on a single night in Greater Manchester rose by 3.4% to 154 in autumn 2024 from 149 in 2023. The authority said this was still below the 268 at the peak in 2017.
The PM at the charity(Image: Getty Images)
Pressed on the rise, Mr Burnham suggested support is needed across the board to make a difference. He referred to the “Everyone In” scheme during the Covid-19 pandemic, when thousands of rough sleepers across England were taken in off the streets.
He said “So it taught me that the only way is to do this together. Everybody pulling in the same direction, Everyone In, as we did in the pandemic – because we did bring people inside in the pandemic and that’s what I’m saying as I go into Government today.
“We did it then. We can do it now. Get the basics right. Put a care for people at the heart of everything that we do and just get this country working as it should again.”
Mr Burnham with workers at the charity(Image: Chris Furlong/PA Wire)
After accompanying charity workers out on the streets on their daily check-in with rough sleepers, Mr Burnham returned to help with food preparation by chopping mushrooms for the day’s breakfast and lunch.
He told the charity’s chief executive, Mick Clarke, that he had “seen your world from the ground” as mayor. He said: “When you have that experience, you can do something with it when you are back at the national level. You change lives everyday (here).”
The latest annual national statistics, published by the Government in February, estimated there were 4,793 people sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025 in England. This was a new record high and the fourth annual increase in a row.
The new PM outside No 10(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Figures published in April, showed 3,944 people were sleeping rough in London in January-March 2026. Homeless Link said this was down from 4,427 in the same period in 2025.
Analysis of annual figures showed that around a fifth of London’s new rough sleepers were people who had last been in asylum accommodation. The findings show the asylum system remains “a significant route onto the streets of the capital”, researchers from Chain said.
There were 4,978 people on London’s streets in the year to March with information recorded about where they were last settled. Of those, 21% or 1,037 people reported that they had been staying in asylum support accommodation.
Meanwhile, official Government figures showed a slight fall in the number of households in temporary accommodation – the first reduction in three years. Temporary accommodation is a form of homelessness and can include hostels, refuges, and bed and breakfasts.
There were 134,210 households in such accommodation at the end of December 2025, down from 134,700 at the end of September 2025, according to official data published in April. But while the latest number dropped slightly below the previous record levels, it was still 5.0% higher than the figure for the end of December 2024 which was 127,820.
The number of children in temporary accommodation has, however, continued to rise, standing at 176,130 at the end of December, up from 175,930 at the end of September. The number was up 6% year on year, from 165,450 at the end of December 2024.
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