Thousands of homeless people arrested under archaic Vagrancy Act

More than 1,000 homeless people have been arrested for sleeping rough or begging since the government pledged to scrap the nearly 200-year-old Vagrancy Act, new figures show.

Freedom of information responses from 29 police forces across England and Wales show officers have arrested 1,173 people since 2021 for offences under the archaic 19th-century act including “vagrant being found in or upon enclosed premises” and “begging and wandering around”.

Ministers have been holding off removing the Vagrancy Act from the statute book until they draw up replacement laws, with legislation repealing the act lacking an implementation date.

But prime minister Rishi Sunak’s antisocial behaviour plan, which was unveiled last week, includes a raft of proposals to replace the act with new powers for local authorities and the police to move on homeless people “causing nuisance” by obstructing shop doorways and begging beside cashpoint machines.

Keir Starmer’s Labour party has also pledged to crack down on antisocial behaviour by giving the police powers to impose new “respect orders” to deal with issues such as street drinking and the harassment of shoppers in town centres.

The Crisis charity said criminalising rough sleeping pushed people who need help and support further to the fringes of society.

“It’s abhorrent that an archaic and punitive piece of legislation is still being used to punish the poorest in society when the UK government has committed, and passed legalisation, to repeal it,” said Matt Downie, Crisis chief executive.

Downie added that simply shunting people from one doorway to the next solved nothing. “We must not find ourselves in a situation where we finally abolish one destructive law only for it to be replaced with another,” he said.

Instead, he called on the government to build genuinely affordable homes, invest in proper support services and ensure that housing benefit covers people’s rents to end homelessness. “We have the solutions to this at our disposal,” said Downie.

Almost 4,000 people have been arrested under vagrancy laws over the past five years, according to the data collated by local government expert Jack Shaw. The Metropolitan Police made 1,666 arrests, more than any other force.

Forces across the country arrested hundreds of people for sleeping in abandoned or empty buildings over the last five years.

The West Midlands, Lancashire, and West Yorkshire police made more than 300 arrests for “vagrants found in an enclosed building”. Devon and Cornwall made 151 arrests for begging over the same period.

Shaw added: “Criminalising the homeless does little to address the root causes of homelessness – and worse, homeless people may disengage with services that exist to support them if they feel unfairly targeted.”

The Vagrancy Act was passed in 1824 to clear makeshift camps of discharged soldiers and sailors left without income or accommodation in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars.

The police have used it ever since to move on rough sleepers and those begging, with thousands of prosecutions between 2008 and 2018. The government pledged to scrap the legislation in 2021 following a cross-party rebellion in the House of Lords and a grassroots campaign by homeless charities.

A government spokesperson said: “We are very clear that we are not criminalising rough sleeping and the government will repeal the outdated Vagrancy Act.

“However, there are some instances of nuisance behaviour by those begging or sleeping rough that can cause harm or distress to the individuals and the wider public.

“Where this happens the government wants to ensure police forces and local authorities are given the tools to direct vulnerable individuals into support where appropriate and help the public feel safe.”