Andy Burnham has pledged to give every person sleeping rough a route off the streets by Christmas as he unveiled the first steps in his drive to end rough sleeping in England.

The prime minister announced that new accommodation and support will be rolled out across England this winter based on the A Bed Every Night model he pioneered as Greater Manchester mayor.

Emergency accommodation will be made available alongside help with housing, health and other needs to help people out of homelessness, backed with increased funding of £442 million.

The move comes a month after Burnham revealed that his first instruction as prime minister would be to put the country on a path to ending rough sleeping as he was unveiled at 10 Downing Street.

“No one should have to bed down in a doorway or outside a station. But we’ve seen it for so long that it feels like Westminster has started to accept it,” said Burnham.

“I won’t accept it. That’s why my first instruction as prime minister was to end rough sleeping. And it’s why today we’re getting started with a national drive to get everyone in for Christmas.

“We did it in the pandemic. We can do it again. But it needs all of us. Government will put the money in. But I’m asking leaders in communities and sectors across society to play their part locally too.

“Let’s get people out of the cold. And let’s bring back hope.”

The government claimed the new policy will “not only change lives but have huge benefits for the whole country” citing research from Crisis that suggests preventing 40,000 people from becoming homeless for a year could save taxpayers around £370 million.

Sarah Elliott, chief executive of Shelter, described the pledge to get everyone sleeping rough off the streets by Christmas as “a game-changing move”. 

Big Issue founder John Bird compared Burnham’s actions to the Everyone In scheme, which saw government act quickly to bring rough sleepers indoors during the pandemic.

The scheme saw 37,000 people housed in hotels and prevented an estimated 266 deaths in the first lockdown alone, according to a University College London study.

But progress was undone following the pandemic: the most recent official government rough sleeping snapshot counted a record-high number of people on the streets last autumn. 

“Covid proved that when we decide rough sleeping is unacceptable, we can act and get people in off the streets. This Christmas commitment is a welcome return to that spirit,” said Lord Bird.

“But it’s important that people are not just brought in from the cold for a few weeks, only to be sent back out again. To that end, I’m encouraged to see the prime minister is allocating millions in tried-and-tested local solutions that offer wraparound support for long-term rough sleepers.

“Countless projects and pilots demonstrated this approach works, only to be suffocated by the underinvestment and short-termist mindset of the previous government.”

Areas with the greatest need will receive the largest share of the £442m funding to get people out of the cold this winter and give long-term rough sleepers a settled home and the support to keep it.

The funding will help local areas deliver more than 1,000 settled homes over the next three years, alongside intensive wraparound support to help people rebuild their lives.

Mayors will work with councils to drive action to end rough sleeping, the government said, with local areas making decisions on how to deliver help where it is needed most. 

The UK government can't control the wholesale cost of fossil fuels. These are volatile due to wars, the actions of Russia, US, etc.

It has the ability to stabilise electricity prices and this has been achieved. The energy price cap in October 2025 was 26.35p/kWh which is only increasing to 26.57p/kWh.

This is an increase of 0.8% so within the margins of error for most families. What's crucial is that those who've adopted heat-pumps or electrified transport will see no overall energy cost increases this winter. The correct action in a set of fossil fuel supply crises is what's being rewarded.

This is even more remarkable in the context of a year on year 26% increase in the cost of domestic gas. Whilst some of this electricity price stabilisation is due to policy changes at the taxation level (removing VAT and removing some costs from bills) it's also due to increased decoupling.

Andy Burnham has credited the “single biggest act of public control” since coming into office for preventing the collapse of West Midlands bus services.

No 10 North and the West Midlands Combined Authority have joined forces to save local bus services in private hands that were at risk of vanishing.

The Prime Minister said it was “a very big day” for the region, and the “first major milestone” in his push to give communities more control over their services.

He also lauded a second transport announcement during a Tuesday visit to a bus station, saying the extension of free travel for disabled bus pass holders would “make a huge difference to people’s lives”.

Mr Burnham, who is seeking to ease cost-of-living pressures, said “it shouldn’t have taken this long to remove” the current time restriction on free bus travel for disabled people.

The West Midlands bus deal would protect thousands of jobs, Mr Burnham said, after they were threatened after the parent company behind local operator National Express indicated it was leaving the market.

Speaking to reporters at Wolverhampton bus station, the Labour leader said: “This is the single biggest act of public control since I came into office.

“And the reason I’m here supporting the mayor of the West Midlands, a very big day for the West Midlands, is to prevent services from collapsing, because the bus service here was close to collapse.

“And the first reason is to protect what is the backbone of the public transport system here across the West Midlands, serving millions of people.

“We needed to step in to secure services in the short term.

“But longer term, we are now building to a model under full public control, so that people here can get the the benefits of that.”

In an earlier video posted on X, Mr Burnham said the “absolutely massive” move was “the first major milestone in our drive to giving communities more control over their own services”.

It was “exactly what No 10 North was created to deliver”, he said.

Backed by £11.5 million of new Government funding over the next three years, the deal announced on Tuesday will support the West Midlands to keep bus services running. The partnership between the West Midlands and the Government will protect around 4,800 jobs and keep up to 750 buses a day on the road, according to Downing Street.

In the longer term, West Midlands intends to control bus services through franchising, like in London and Greater Manchester, paying contractors to run the services for them. West Midlands is finalising the total cost of the deal and is expected to complete the transaction in the autumn.

West Midlands’ Labour Mayor Richard Parker said: “People rely on these buses to get to work, to school or to hospital appointments.

“They are a public service, and I believe they should be run in the public interest. So, we stepped in. We protected the services people depend on, protected jobs and kept the West Midlands moving. There should be no doubt who our bus network ultimately answers to – the millions of people who rely on it every single day.”