Angela Rayner said meeting rough sleepers “reminds you of what matters” as she joined Andy Burnham and John Healey on a visit to a homelessness charity on Monday. The top Cabinet ministers took time out from Labour’s conference to meet people who will be directly affected by their policy to end rough sleeping.
The Prime Minister laughed and chatted with people who had benefited from homelessness support services in Bootle, just down the road from the conference centre. Chancellor Mr Healey, who finished his keynote conference speech just an hour before, helped make an apple crumble in the centre’s kitchen, where people learn how to cook and share meals together. Mr Burnham also mucked in by painting a plant box in the sunny, blooming garden, which is tended to by service users at the Independence Initiative.
Rayner: 'It reminds you of what matters'
Ms Rayner, the Housing Secretary, told The Mirror: “I get a lot out of this as well because it reminds you of what matters. Sometimes when you're in Westminster, you talk about stats, you're talking about high-level strategic issues and laws, but it's about how it affects people on the ground and changes people's lives.
“This literally changes people's lives. And there's so many volunteers and workers, and I talk about the carers, talk about the workers here that are doing the outreach work, and it really does change people's lives. Like even the smallest thing, that little connection.”
On the day Mr Burnham entered Downing Street in July, the new PM made ending rough sleeping his “first instruction” to officials. The PM has pledged to offer a place to stay to every rough sleeper by Christmas, with emergency accommodation and help to be rolled out in England later this year. It is backed by increased funding of £442million. He will convene a “first of its kind” national summit on ending rough sleeping this autumn.
Building a network of support
Ms Rayner, who chatted with staff and service users at the centre, said: “Speaking to the volunteers and the guys here they said: 'We feel seen for the first time, we feel seen.'
“And then looking at what this place does, it's not just about taking people off the streets. It's about creating a network of support. It's about the wraparound support that people need. Sometimes it's even getting your credit checks, getting your bills sorted out, getting your hospital appointments if you need that, your GP registration.”
Ms Rayner said she is working with mayors and local authorities to increase coordination between services to meet the Christmas deadline to offer a place to every rough sleeper. She added: “On Friday, I was in my patch in Tameside talking to the police, the council, the homelessness service through the supported living, and really trying to make sure that we're coordinated so that we identify where the problems are and we give people those opportunities.
“So we do it all year round, but there's going to be a huge focus on it this time round to really make sure that the coordination between those services are there, so we can help people, and that's my message to people. This is what we want to do: This whole community effort to help people and get them on the right path.”
Legal changes and calls for action
In her speech to Labour conference on Tuesday, the Housing Secretary will announce changes in the law to maximise councils’ abilities to buy up social rented homes that are being sold by private registered providers. She will also outline new powers to require public services to work together to prevent homelessness, and ensure homeless households are referred to housing associations and other providers to be housed. The changes will be legislated for as amendments to the Social Housing Bill.
Asked how she will feel if the Government fails in its target to end rough sleeping, Ms Rayner added: “I think government has to change and give people hope.”
John Bird, the Big Issue founder, said a whole society approach is needed to eradicate homelessness, which he said must sit alongside a pledge to wipe out poverty. He told The Mirror: “An ex-rough sleeper and as an ex-you know-homeless guy, I can honestly say that it's getting worse again. When I was a young man and when I was a boy, sleeping rough, running away from home and the police, and all sorts of stuff like that, there was very, very few young people involved in it.
“Now there's an enormous amount of young people, and you see young people who get involved in drugs and they get involved in other things.” Lord Bird said the Government must bring together the public alongside charities, churches, and other organisations to build an alliance to tackle the issue. “It has to be this kind of assembly, this confederation of effort,” he said.
“I've been advocating for the creation of a government body, which I hope would be a ministry - the Ministry of Poverty Prevention and Cure - because the problem is nearly all the big money is going in the emergency, and if you spend all your money on the emergency, you don't have any left for prevention or for cure.
“And what I want, Andy Burnham, and I'm going to be a pain in the rear about this one. I will always be reminding him that if you want to eradicate homelessness, you have to begin to eradicate poverty.”
Charity welcomes PM's focus
Paulene Connell, deputy chief executive of the Independence Initiative, welcomed Mr Burnham's focus on homelessness and rough sleeping, which is often an “invisible” issue to many. She told The Mirror: “The service users feel invisible and hidden. As staff at times working in a small charity, we're fighting their corner and we feel invisible, so I really welcomed he put it on the agenda. I felt really seen, and so did our service users. They felt we had a voice.”
Ms Connell urged the PM to tackle a lack of coordination between public services. She said: “When you actually advocate for somebody, you're in a silo, and you actually have to fight really hard to get that person sort of joined up into the services. Somebody will do a referral, and they perhaps don't chase it.
“In the wider sort of partners, it can be, you know, trying to get somebody mental health assessed if they've got a drug problem. It's not happening. 'Go away and come back in 12 months.' That doesn't work. That makes it worse.”
Jim Brett, the chief executive at the initiative, added: “Every human being is so small an angle away from it happening to them as well. We all know that it could easily happen to you, and wouldn't you want that support if it happened to you? We need to be a bit more human about it and actually help people.”
It comes as startling new figures show half of people rough sleeping in England have spent time in prison. Former inmates are 40 times more likely to experience rough sleeping than those who have not. The data shows that on a single night in October 2025, there were 4,793 rough sleepers in England, with 49% of those saying they had been in prison in the past. Campaign group Nacro has warned the government’s drive to end rough sleeping will be scuppered if it does not act.
A 58-year-old man who sofa surfed while battling addiction has praised Andy Burnham for taking homelessness seriously. Joey Cullen, who is from Dublin and now lives in Liverpool, met the PM, Angela Rayner and John Healey, at the Independence Initiative on Monday. Joey, who now volunteers at the centre, said the support he received from the initiative gave him a new “start”.
“I was kind of sleeping on my mate's sofa. My mum passed away, you know, just before I came over, so I was kind of getting a little bit deeper and deeper into stuff that I shouldn't be doing. So this is where I went for a new start. So I came up to Liverpool and I'm here 11 months now and, yeah, I love it.” Joey said you don't believe everything politicians say on the TV but praised Mr Burnham for taking an interest in how the services work.
He said: “When you've heard so many politicians say so much about so much when they get into power, when you see the people who came here today - the Chancellor, the Lady, and the Prime Minister - and actually taking an interest in what's going on here, that's massive.
“We didn't know until 15 minutes before the man came that he was coming. None of us knew. And, you don't believe everything you see on the TV now, (but) I'm just going to say that he's a gentleman. You know that he put me at ease. I was able to chat to him... he seems really interested in what they're doing.”
