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With the deadline now less than two months away, Big Issue asked Burnham how he would feel if it gets to Boxing Day and there are people sleeping rough on the streets.
Would he feel as though it has failed? “Well, it will have done to degree,” the prime minister admitted. “But I’m not going to be naive. I can offer people a route off the streets, but not everybody will take it. That is the reality of the situation.
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“People may be low on trust when they are offered to come in. It’s not the case that you can say there will be nobody sleeping rough. That isn’t right, and I wouldn’t say that. What I can say though is I can ask every council as part of the funding we’ve given to provide an offer to everyone, and that’s what we’re confident of now.”
Big Issue met with the prime minister at the Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields, a London homelessness charity, where he spoke with people facing homelessness and frontline workers.
Burnham was accompanied by chancellor John Healey, who is due to announce his autumn budget on Wednesday (28 October) and Rachel Blake, the local Labour MP for the cities of London and Westminster.
The full details of the new funding towards ending rough sleeping will be set out in the budget, but it will extend support beyond March 2027 and through to the end of this parliament.
Specialist outreach teams and new bedspaces are already operating in Coventry, and further provision being rolled out in places including Plymouth and Camden over the coming weeks, the government said.
Following his visit to Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields, the prime minister is also set to host the first rough sleeping summit at Downing Street to bring together businesses like IKEA and L’Oreal alongside charities, housing providers and local leaders to discuss what needs to happen to address homelessness.
Asked if he has seen any difference made so far since making his rough sleeping pledge, Burnham said: “The money’s only just started to come through, but I did see a huge difference when I pioneered A Bed Every Night in Greater Manchester.
“It worked very well in getting the numbers down. What it struggled with later on was the fact that Greater Manchester was the only place offering that level of support and people would travel to Greater Manchester to access it.
“And hence it became very difficult to keep the numbers going down in that scenario.
So, coming in as prime minister, I was very clear, I don’t think anyone should sleep rough in this country and I think you can tackle it when everywhere does it all in one go, everyone pulling in the same direction together.
“And that’s what we’re setting up now through this drive that I’ve launched. It’s a long-term drive. But this is a fixable problem and it’s about a national effort on every level to fix it.”
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