Some good news. The government has committed to scrapping the rough sleeping provisions of the Vagrancy Act 1824 and not replacing them. Finally, rough sleeping will be decriminalised.
The previous government had said the Vagrancy Act 1824 would be repealed, but, in a somewhat sinister way, said the provisions would be replaced.
But now, the Vagrancy Act will be repealed and there will be no replacement provisions as regards rough sleeping.
There will be new offences of “facilitating begging for gain and an offence of trespassing with the intention of committing a crime” in place of the Vagrancy Act equivalents, but:
Scrapping the Vagrancy Act for good is another step forward in our mission to tackle homelessness in all its forms, by focusing our efforts on its root causes.”
Government amendments to the Home Office’s Crime and Policing Bill will focus on real crime and not rough sleeping, with no replacement of previous legislation that criminalised people for simply sleeping rough.
Finally, finally. It has only taken 202 years. But in the current state of the world, let us celebrate good things. Break out the Babycham!
I think I’m slightly dyslexic – I read “Break out the Brylcreem” (oh Denis Compton) – maybe my memory is going too, didn’t we solve rough sleeping in 2020?