Vagrancy Act repeal ends criminalising rough sleeping
If you are wondering why a law from 1824 still mattered in 2026, the short answer is this: it helped treat homelessness as something to punish instead of something to solve. On Monday 29 June 2026, ministers say the Vagrancy Act will be repealed, ending nearly 200 years of legal powers that criminalised rough sleeping and begging. In the GOV.UK announcement, Housing Secretary Steve Reed put the point plainly: people without a home need help, not punishment. That is the real change here. This is not just a legal tidy-up. It is a statement about what kind of response homelessness should get.
It helps to remember where this law came from. The Vagrancy Act was introduced after the Napoleonic Wars and during the Industrial Revolution, in a country dealing with upheaval, poverty and displacement. Laws created in moments like that can last far longer than the thinking behind them. Homelessness minister Alison McGovern called the repeal long overdue, and you can see why. The government now accepts that the Act could punish people simply for not having a home, pushing them away from support, exposing them to fines or criminal records, and making it harder to rebuild their lives.
The biggest lesson for readers is simple: rough sleeping is a housing and support issue, not a character flaw and not a public nuisance by default. When someone is sleeping on a pavement, the urgent question should be why they have ended up there and what help is available next. That is why this repeal matters beyond Westminster. **What this means:** rough sleeping itself is being decriminalised under this old law, so the state is moving away from treating visible poverty as an offence in its own right.
At the same time, ministers are careful to say this does not remove every power from councils or police. The government says the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 can still be used where behaviour causes harassment or distress, and it says statutory guidance will be updated so those powers are used properly. The announcement also says the Crime and Policing Act 2026 will create new offences aimed at organised begging gangs, people who exploit others for money, and trespass linked to criminal activity. That distinction is important. Sleeping rough is not the same thing as organised exploitation, and the law is now trying to separate those two ideas.
The repeal sits alongside the National Plan to End Homelessness, which the government says is backed by £3.6 billion over the next three years. Ministers say the plan aims to halve long-term rough sleeping and end the unlawful use of B&Bs for families by the end of this Parliament. Some of that money is already attached to named schemes. The government says £159 million for supported housing will help more than 2,500 people across England either leave the streets or avoid them in the first place. It also points to a £37 million Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund, a £15 million Long-Term Rough Sleeping Innovation Programme for 28 areas under the most pressure, and £950 million to improve temporary accommodation.
The housing side matters just as much as the legal change. Repealing a law does not create a single home on its own, which is why ministers are also pointing to £39 billion for social and affordable housing over the next 10 years. In the notes attached to the announcement, the government says affordable housing starts in 2025–26 reached 42,499, up 26% on the previous year and 35% on 2023/24. Completions rose to 43,104, up 8%, and starts under the 2021–26 Affordable Homes Programme have reached 117,947. For you as a reader, the useful question is not only how much money is being announced, but whether it turns into secure homes people can actually afford.
The plan is also trying to stop homelessness earlier, before it becomes street homelessness. The government says it wants to halve the number of people who become homeless on their first night out of prison, and it says no eligible person should be discharged to the street after a hospital stay. Its longer-term aim is that nobody should leave a public institution straight into homelessness. There is another thread here that should not be missed: domestic abuse. The government says research from the Rough Sleeping Questionnaire 2025 found that nearly 70% of women who experienced rough sleeping in the past year had experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16. Ministers say the upcoming Social Housing Bill will strengthen protections for survivors, while the Renters' Rights Act is set to abolish Section 21 no-fault evictions, which have pushed many renters towards homelessness.
Charities that have campaigned on this for years say the repeal is overdue. In the government release, Crisis called it a watershed moment, St Mungo's said outreach teams see every day how arrests deepen distrust, and Housing Justice and Homeless Link both welcomed the end of a law they say punished people for having nowhere safe to sleep. There is also a practical message after a week of record temperatures. The government is reminding the public about StreetLink, the alert system that lets you tell local services when someone is rough sleeping and may need support. The deeper test starts after Monday 29 June 2026: if this legal change is followed by housing, prevention and properly funded services, it could mark a real break with a two-century-old habit of punishing homelessness. If not, the Act will be gone, but the crisis will still be with us.