Andy Burnham: 'Right to Buy scheme means homelessness will get worse before it gets better'

Greater Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham has admitted that homelessness will get worse before it can fall in his region. 

Burnham has also renewed his calls to prime minister Keir Starmer to reform the Right to Buy scheme, which allows council housing tenants to purchase their house at a huge discount, as he says people are struggling to get off the streets due to “the grip of the housing crisis getting tighter every year”. 

Commenting on his London counterpart, Sadiq Khan, telling the Big Issue homeless will worsen in his capital, Burnham admitted he is also witnessing the same trajectory in Manchester.

He said: “Sadly, I think that is correct because the grip of the housing crisis gets tighter every year. Why? Because we are still losing net social homes every year. More are being sold off under right to buy than are being built. That means the pressure on housing is increasing as opposed to going in a better direction.

“It is why I have called on the government to make some reforms to Right to Buy. For instance, if our councils are building new social homes, they should be exempt from the Right to Buy provision.”

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The former Labour cabinet minister’s intervention comes as he revealed his office is expanding the ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme, which provides a bed and personal support for anyone who is sleeping rough in the region. 

It is going from 550 rooms to 600 per night because “our aim is to make an offer” of accommodation for “everybody”, Andy Burnham said.

He added: “Our own research in Greater Manchester shows that we’re spending at least £75m every year on renting temporary accommodation across the city-region, and we only get 42% of that back via housing benefit.”

According to Shelter figures released last year, Manchester ranks third-highest in the country for people experiencing homelessness per capita, with around 7,407 people (one in 74 people) affected. 

Sadiq Khan talked about the issues he is facing in London at the end of January, telling Big Issue: “I think you’ll start seeing progress, there will be milestones along the way. We’re in 2025 now, I think things are going to get worse this year but things will improve by next year.”

However, despite his promise to end rough sleeping by 2030, he added: “I’m not going to wait until 2029 to end rough sleeping by 2030. We’ll start seeing progress once the Renters’ Rights Bill becomes an act, once we’ve negotiated with the government affordable housing programme and once we start seeing the cost of living crisis being addressed.

“Those things will help. Actually what we need is to support families early on so they don’t have a situation where child poverty is going up, people are ending up sofa surfing and so forth.

“That’s the prize of growth. If we get growth it helps jobs and prosperity and supports families.”

The combined efforts of the two Labour mayors seem to be influencing the government as it recently announced an “emergency” £30m boost. 

Homelessness minister Rushanara Ali declared last month: “No one should be forced to live in constant fear of losing their home and too many people are being pushed to the brink of homelessness as a direct consequence of the system we have inherited.”

“Our Plan for Change is tackling the worst housing crisis in a generation by delivering the biggest boost in social and affordable housing in a generation, fixing the broken rental market and getting us back on track to end homelessness once and for all,” she said. 

Bill Curtis is a journalist for The London Economic and more.

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