'People rough sleeping in doorways and stations isn't the Britain I want to see'

'People rough sleeping in doorways and stations isn't the Britain I want to see' Andy Burnham writes for The Mirror about his pledge to end rough sleeping - it was the first instruction he made as Prime Minister when he entered Downing Street last month Just after I was elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, I spent a bit of time out and about selling the Big Issue. I remember standing there with the magazine in my hand, trying to catch people’s eye. I wasn’t doing it for long. I knew I had somewhere warm to get back to afterwards. But it brought home to me what it must feel like to be on our streets, without a bed for the night. That’s never sat right with me. At our best, Britain puts care of people at the heart of everything we do. Just think about the pandemic – people of every background pulling together and looking out for one another. Whether it was volunteering to deliver food packages, checking in on an elderly neighbour, or just standing outside on a Thursday banging a pan for our frontline workers, everyone had a role to play. We were all in it together. That’s the Britain I want to build – a country where no one is written off. But that’s not the Britain I see today. And while some of our own are still bedded down in doorways and outside stations, we can never kid ourselves that the job’s done. Ending rough sleeping is a moral mission for me. It always has been. Growing up, I could see the effects of deindustrialisation on our streets. I saw what happened when good jobs disappeared and hollowed out communities were left to pick up the pieces. And I learned early on that when things go wrong for a friend, a neighbour or even a stranger – in fact, especially a stranger - you don’t just turn your back on them. You stick out your hand, you dust them off, and you help them get on. That’s why my first instruction as Prime Minister was to end rough sleeping. And it’s why today we’re getting started with a national drive to get everyone in for Christmas. As part of that, we’ll be putting £442million behind the people and services who work day in, day out to get people off the streets. I’ll expect everyone to be offered a route off the streets, but it will be up to local leaders to decide what kind of support their communities need beyond that. Gone are the days of Westminster dictating solutions to the local people who face these issues every day. So government will put the money in – I can promise you that. But I’m asking leaders across society to play their part too. Because if I learned anything from my time in Greater Manchester – and if we learned anything from the pandemic - it’s that we can only get things done when we all pull together. Together, we can build a Britain that puts care of people back at the heart of who we are – and bring back hope.