Vagrancy Act Repeal Begins on Monday 29 June 2026

The government says the Vagrancy Act will be repealed on Monday 29 June 2026, ending a law first passed in 1824 that allowed rough sleeping and begging to be treated as criminal matters. That may sound like a technical legal change, but it is much bigger than that. It marks a clear break with the idea that someone without a safe place to live should be punished for their poverty. **What this means:** if a person is sleeping outside because they do not have a home, the starting point should now be support rather than sanction. That sounds obvious when you say it plainly, yet for a very long time the law sent the opposite message.

That is why this repeal matters beyond Westminster. The Vagrancy Act was created after the Napoleonic Wars and during the Industrial Revolution, when visible poverty was often treated as a public order problem. Even though use of the Act has fallen sharply, ministers and homelessness charities say it has still been used to move people on instead of asking why they had nowhere to go. For someone already in crisis, that can deepen the problem. Fines, warnings or criminal records do not create stability. They can make it harder to build trust, keep appointments, find work or secure housing. Housing Secretary Steve Reed and Homelessness Minister Alison McGovern both presented the repeal as a move away from punishment and towards prevention, arguing that the old law failed because it never dealt with the causes of rough sleeping in the first place.

The repeal also sits inside a much larger government promise. Ministers say their National Plan to End Homelessness, backed by £3.6 billion over the next three years, is designed to halve long-term rough sleeping and end the unlawful use of bed and breakfasts for families by the end of this Parliament. **Why this matters:** scrapping one law removes a threat, but it does not by itself provide a front door key, mental health care, income support or a safe place to recover. The plan sets targets that are meant to change what public services do before a person reaches the pavement, including halving the number of people who become homeless on their first night out of prison and making sure no eligible person leaves hospital to the street.

There is also a longer promise tucked inside the announcement: no one should be made homeless by a public institution. That line matters because homelessness is often the result of a chain of missed chances. A prison release without planning, a hospital discharge with nowhere to go, or a council system that reacts too late can all push someone into rough sleeping. Seen that way, the repeal is not only about removing an old offence. It is about changing what the state believes its job is. Instead of asking how to clear a doorway or disperse a person, the question becomes how to stop the crisis earlier and more fairly.

Then we reach the part every homelessness debate returns to: housing supply. The government has paired the repeal with a £39 billion commitment to social and affordable housing over the next ten years, which it describes as the biggest long-term investment of its kind in a generation. The same announcement says affordable housing starts are up 35% since 2024. The figures given are substantial. In 2025-26 there were 42,499 affordable housing starts, up 26% on the previous year, and 43,104 completions, up 8%. Starts under the 2021-26 Affordable Homes Programme have reached 117,947. Those numbers do not mean the shortage is solved, but they make one point very clearly: you cannot end homelessness if there are not enough secure, affordable homes for people to move into.

The practical work will mostly happen far from Parliament, through councils, housing teams and charities already working street by street. Ministers say a £159 million supported housing grant is helping more than 2,500 people across England move off the streets or avoid sleeping rough in the first place. Another £37 million is going to the Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund, which backs voluntary, community and faith groups doing daily prevention and support work. A further £15 million Long-Term Rough Sleeping Innovation Programme is being directed to 28 areas facing the heaviest long-term pressures, while £950 million is meant to improve temporary accommodation and reduce the worst use of bed and breakfasts. **What this tells you:** the repeal is only the first visible step. Whether it changes lives depends on what happens next in local housing offices, hostels, outreach services and emergency accommodation.

One of the strongest parts of the government’s case is its focus on the reasons people become homeless in the first place. Domestic abuse is a major example. Research cited in the announcement says nearly 70% of women who experienced rough sleeping in the past year in 2025 had also experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16. That is why ministers are linking this repeal to wider housing reform. The upcoming Social Housing Bill is meant to strengthen protections for victims of domestic abuse in social housing, while the Renters’ Rights Act is set to abolish Section 21 no-fault evictions, a practice the government says has pushed thousands of renters towards homelessness. If you read this story only as a change to criminal law, you miss the fuller lesson: homelessness often begins with failures in housing, safety and support long before a person is seen sleeping outside.

Some readers will ask a reasonable question here. If the Vagrancy Act is going, what happens when behaviour is genuinely harmful? The government’s answer is that other legal powers already exist. Ministers point to the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 for cases involving harassment or distress, and they say official guidance will be updated so those powers are used properly and not simply because someone is homeless. The government also says it will keep a hard line on exploitation. New offences in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 are intended to target organised begging gangs, people who exploit others for financial gain, and trespass connected to criminal activity. The distinction matters. A person surviving on the street is not the same thing as an organised criminal operation, and good law should be clear enough to tell those apart.

Homelessness organisations have welcomed the repeal in unusually strong terms. Crisis called it a watershed moment. St Mungo’s, Housing Justice and Homeless Link each made the same broad case: when the law treats homelessness as something to punish, it pushes people further from help and makes recovery harder. There is also an immediate reminder for the public. After a week of record temperatures, ministers urged people to use the StreetLink alert system if they see someone sleeping rough and in need of support. That final point fits the bigger lesson of this story. Repealing the Vagrancy Act changes the law, but it also asks us to change our reflexes. Rough sleeping is not a character flaw or a nuisance to be swept away. It is a sign that housing and support systems have gone wrong, and that everyone deserves something better than a pavement and a penalty.