Blogger’s Note: Read this carefully. The bourgeois State is self-congratulatory – whilst the bourgeois charities are acting like something substantial is happening. Capitalism exploits the masses and causes starvation and homelessness. When tens of thousands of British soldiers were demobilised after “winning” at the Battle of Waterloo – they came home to find unemployment, starvation, and homelessness. This is how the British State treated its war heroes and military Veterans. Just as Henry VIII executed 75,000 former-serfs for being unemployed in the 1500s – the British State in 1824 “criminalised” the very homelessness its policies and economic system inflicted on the working class. The British State takes everything away – and then criminalises “having nothing”. Despite the “orgasmic” nature of this article – what is really happening is this; the Labour Party is abolishing the 1824 Vagrancy Act not because it is “immoral” – but rather because as an “Act” – it no longer meets the current conditions that homelessness exists within. In other words, the Police cannot properly punish the homeless in the modern era under the 1824 Act – and it must be updated and reformed. Labour thinks it can gain some short-term credit for an apparent “humanitarian” act – when in reality all the powers contained in the 1824 Act are being updated and transferred into a reformed Crime and Policing Bill. This change is superficial and will see the Police given far more relevant powers to arrest, persecute, and/or move on the homeless in many more imaginative and creative ways that by-pass all the legal powers that charities currently use to support and protect the homeless, etc. This is a Labour “attack” on homelessness – disguised as “progress” and “improvement”. ACW (11.6.2025)
A 200-year-old law criminalising rough sleepers is to be scrapped in what homeless charities have hailed a “landmark moment”.
The Vagrancy Act, introduced in 1824 for punishment of “idle and disorderly persons, and rogues and vagabonds, in England”, is to be repealed by spring next year, the Government has confirmed.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who is also Housing Secretary, said Labour is “drawing a line under nearly two centuries of injustice towards some of the most vulnerable in society”.
The law was brought in to deal with rising homelessness after the Napoleonic Wars and the Industrial Revolution and modern-day homeless charities have long called for it to be scrapped.
Campaigners said criminalising the most vulnerable has never been the answer and instead homelessness needs to be properly addressed through support for people who end up sleeping rough.
Figures published in April showed the number of people classed as living on the streets in London had risen by more than a third (38%) year-on-year to 706 from 511.
According to the latest Combined Homelessness and Information Network (Chain) statistics, the total number recorded as sleeping rough in the capital was 4,427 for the three months to March 2025, which was a near-8% increase from 4,118 for the same quarter last year.
Ms Rayner said: “No one should ever be criminalised simply for sleeping rough and by scrapping this cruel and outdated law, we are making sure that can never happen again.”
Homelessness minister Rushanara Ali described the “archaic” Act as “neither just nor fit for purpose”.
She added: “Scrapping the Vagrancy Act for good is another step forward in our mission to tackle homelessness in all its forms, by focusing our efforts on its root causes.”
The Government said new “targeted measures will ensure police have the powers they need to keep communities safe – filling the gap left over by removing previous powers”, and will be brought in throughamendments to the Crime and Policing Bill.
These will be new offences of facilitating begging for gain and trespassing with the intention of committing a crime.
The Government said this will ensure organised begging – often facilitated by criminal gangs – remains an offence, meaning it is unlawful for anyone to organise others to beg by, for example, driving them places to do so.
Crisis chief executive Matt Downie said: “This is a landmark moment that will change lives and prevent thousands of people from being pushed into the shadows, away from safety.”
He praised the Government for having “shown such principled leadership in scrapping this pernicious Act”.
He said: “We hope this signals a completely different approach to helping people forced onto the streets and clears the way for a positive agenda that is about supporting people who desperately want to move on in life and fulfil their potential. We look forward to assisting the UK Government with their forthcoming homelessness strategy to do exactly that.”
St Mungo’s chief executive Emma Haddad said the Act’s repeal “cannot come soon enough” and called for a “focus on tackling the health, housing and wider societal issues that are causing homelessness in the first place”.
Youth homelessness charity Centrepoint warned that a challenge will be “ensuring that proposed amendments don’t have the unintended consequences of punishing people instead of supporting them”.
Balbir Kaur Chatrik, the charity’s director of policy and prevention, said: “Criminalising the most vulnerable was never an effective solution and we look forward to working with the Government on its ending homelessness strategy to ensure people in this position are supported, not punished going forward.”
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 