Vagrancy Act 1824: Will it be repealed?

Approximate read time: 10 minutes

1. What is the Vagrancy Act 1824?

The Vagrancy Act 1824 criminalised ‘sleeping out’ (rough sleeping) and begging, subject to certain conditions. Much of the act has been repealed and amended over the past 200 years. However, sections are still in force today and are used to police begging and rough sleeping.

During the early 1820s there was a particular concern about vagrancy, with vagrancy acts passed in 1821, 1822 and again in 1824.^[1] In this period there were increasing numbers of people in poverty moving across the country looking for work, including soldiers who had returned from the Napoleonic wars.^[2] Parliamentarians wished to address the cost faced by local authorities in removing vagrants from their counties. The 1821 act principally dealt with regulating the costs of vagrancy, and the 1822 act introduced a broader set of measures, creating temporary provisions that were made permanent (and in some instances extended) by the 1824 act.^[3] The 1824 act was then introduced with the aim of simplifying “centuries of existing vagrancy laws”.^[4]

The 1824 act set out categories of ‘vagrant’ and created criminal offences relating to begging and rough sleeping. Whilst large parts of the act have been repealed, sections 3 and 4, as substantially amended, remain on the statute book for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.^[5] Section 3 (as amended) criminalises begging in the following terms:

Every person wandering abroad, or placing himself or herself in any public place, street, highway, court, or passage, to beg or gather alms, or causing or procuring or encouraging any child or children so to do; shall be deemed an idle and disorderly person within the true intent and meaning of this act […]

Section 4 (as amended) makes it an offence to ‘sleep out’. However, individuals can only be charged with the offence if they have been directed to reasonably accessible and free of charge shelter, and they have either refused or failed to apply for accommodation there.^[6] Section 4 also prohibits being on enclosed premises for an unlawful purpose, which is used to deal with suspected burglary but has also been used to challenge rough sleepers.^[7]

The number of prosecutions and convictions under sections 3 and 4 of the 1824 act has declined over the last decade. In 2023, there were 305 prosecutions and 239 convictions for the section 3 offence of begging.^[8] There has been a decline each year since the peak of 2,219 prosecutions and 1,857 convictions in 2014. Prosecutions and convictions under section 4 have followed a similar trend. There was a total of 79 prosecutions and 59 convictions for section 4 offences in 2023. This is down from a peak of 1,050 and 810 respectively in 2011. The following table presents total prosecutions and convictions for offences under the Vagrancy Act 1824.

Table 1. Prosecutions and convictions for offences under the Vagrancy Act 1824, 2010 to 2023

(Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice system statistics quarterly: December 2023—outcomes by offence data tool’, 16 May 2024)

Note: The table lists charges brought, not the number of individuals charged; individuals may be charged more than once.

Whilst there has been a decline in the number of prosecutions and convictions, homeless organisations, such as Crisis, say the official figures do not paint a full picture. Crisis argues that the act is more commonly used “informally” to move individuals on or challenge behaviour.^[9]

2. What are the criticisms of the 1824 act?

The use of the vagrancy act to police rough sleeping and begging is controversial and there have long been calls for its repeal. Concerns have been expressed by a variety of stakeholders, including the rough sleeping advisory panel,^[10] set up under Theresa May’s Conservative government in 2018, which called for a review of the legislation around rough sleeping.^[11] It said the panel were clear: “people who sleep rough need help and should not be discriminated against”.

A group of charities, including Crisis, Centrepoint and St Mungo’s, have campaigned for the act to be repealed. In a report published in 2019, they too criticised the approach of penalising individuals rather than offering assistance. The report argued the approach of authorities to use the legislation “informally” to move individuals on or to challenge them on their behaviours often made the situation worse:

This kind of approach antagonises the people affected, including support and outreach workers and some police themselves, because it does not address the root causes of the situation. The approaches can also cause further problems by displacing people into more dangerous places or riskier activities, and potentially drawing people into a criminal justice system that is not well designed to address their needs.^[12]

The charities called for the act to be repealed, with additional legislative provisions introduced to support this if necessary; for example, to cover specific instances of antisocial behaviour.^[13] In addition, the report recommended increased support and outreach services across England and Wales. It said police and criminal justice services should address antisocial behaviour with more “trauma-informed” approaches.

As part of a broader review of its approach to rough sleeping, the Conservative government’s 2018 ‘Rough sleeping strategy’ committed to reviewing the act.^[14]

3. Has there been any progress on repealing the act?

During the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill through Parliament in 2022, there was debate on repealing the Vagrancy Act 1824. In the House of Lords, an amendment was made to the bill that would have repealed the 1824 act. However, the government argued that the act should not be repealed until alternative measures were developed.^[15] As a result, government amendments were added to the bill to repeal the act after 18 months, giving the government time to introduce a replacement of the 1824 act.

The amendments became section 81 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. However, section 81 is not yet in force. The section needs to be brought into effect by regulations and these have not yet been made. The Conservative government had said it would commence the provisions, and therefore repeal the act, once new legislation was passed to replace it.

The Conservative government had planned to bring in new measures through the Criminal Justice Bill 2023–24. However, this bill did not complete its stages in Parliament before the 2024 general election was called and therefore it did not become law. The bill would have introduced a framework of nuisance begging and nuisance rough sleeping directions, prevention notices and orders, and it would have created an offence of trespassing with intent to commit a criminal offence. The Home Office’s impact assessment published alongside the bill said the measures would have encouraged people potentially impacted by the provisions (for example, rough sleepers) to engage with available support services.^[16] However, Crisis’s chief executive, Matt Downie, had said the new measures were “punitive” and would cause harm to the homeless.^[17]

The current Labour government pledged in its manifesto to develop a new cross-government strategy, “working with mayors and councils across the country, to put Britain back on track to ending homelessness”.^[18] Rushanara Ali, minister for housing, has said this would include consideration of any relevant legislation.^[19]

4. Read more

• House of Lords Library, ‘Decriminalising rough sleeping and begging: Calls for repealing the Vagrancy Act 1824’, 17 April 2020
• House of Commons Library, ‘Criminal Justice Bill 2023–24’, 24 November 2023
• Home Office, ‘Repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 factsheet’, 20 August 2022
• Holly Bancroft, ‘Homeless people are still being arrested under a 200-year-old act criminalising rough sleeping’, Independent, 7 August 2024

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Cover image by Dan Burton on Unsplash.