The Vagrancy Act 1824 and the Ongoing Human Rights-Housing Discourse

• Vagrancy: The state of living without a settled home or regular work, living by asking for money or food.  

• Repeal: Revoke/annul (a law).

Following the effects of the Napoleonic wars and the Industrial Revolution, increasing numbers of people were experiencing homelessness and economic hardship. In this period, people were moving across the country looking for work, and administrators wanted to target the costs acquired by local authorities when removing ‘vagrants’ from their counties. The Vagrancy Act 1824 was a result of broadening measures originally focused on regulating costs, simplifying centuries of existing vagrancy laws and extending the temporary provisions established in prior years.

Although its main provisions remained largely intact for nearly two centuries, the Vagrancy Act has undergone many amendments throughout time. The use of the Act has been falling since the 2010s, coinciding with the introduction of various policy initiatives and the update of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Additionally in 2022, the Police, Crime, Sentencing Courts Act provided for the 1824 Act to be repealed in full, with section 81 explicitly stipulating this provision. This included repealing section 3, which currently makes begging an offence, and section 4, which includes people who sleep in an outdoor setting, or in any deserted or unoccupied building.

However, to ensure the police have the necessary tools to protect communities, the government argued that the repeal of the 1824 Act should not take effect until appropriate replacement legislation is in place, and as it stands, section 81 is still not yet in force. The continued existence of the 1824 Act has posed multiple challenges, including police forces using the Act to different degrees; the main formal use of the Act in the past decade has been against begging but prosecutions for all offences in the Act can still happen as long as it legally remains.

While the Act penalises rough sleeping and begging, modern housing policies emphasise the need for protective measures, including the provision of suitable accommodation for those at risk of homelessness. In the context of Human Rights, no article specifically gives a right to housing. However, Article 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 states 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment', and Article 8 states 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life’. These articles are typically invoked in discussions of whether there was a failure to provide suitable accommodation, especially when such failures may result in a violation of fundamental human dignity or rights.

An individual rough sleeping will not necessarily constitute inhuman or degrading treatment. This is seen through how in one case the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a local authority's failure to perform its homelessness duties did not give rise to compensation and was not a breach of the Convention. However, if an individual is destitute and there are exceptional personal factors that the authority did not help remedy, Article 3 may be engaged.

If the failure to provide adequate housing results in an individual experiencing 'inhuman’ treatment that undermines their physical well-being, it may constitute a violation of Article 8. Article 8 not only applies to situations where no housing has been provided, but also in cases where the accommodation offered negatively impacts private and family life. This is evident in the case of R v Enfield, where the local authority took two years to house a family of six, including a wife who was severely disabled, while the family was left living in entirely unsuitable accommodation. This was held to be a breach of Article 8 because there was no possibility of a near-normal family life.

However, in another case, an applicant with a disabled child who was unable to access the toilet and bathroom in their accommodation on their own was not found to be a violation of Article 8. The court ruled that because the authority had been making efforts to secure suitable accommodation and, despite the difficulties, the applicant’s family life was able to continue, there was no breach. Overall, this demonstrates how the courts assess each case based on specific circumstances.

It is understood that homelessness should no longer be viewed as a punitive issue, and there is a recognised social shift away from that perspective. It is also acknowledged that adequate housing is crucial for an individual's quality of life. However, it is concerning to note that the 1824 Act still carries legal ramifications, and the use of Human Rights in the discourse surrounding housing adequacy remains hotly contested. This raises a broader concern about the need for more action to protect housing-vulnerable people, and how the slow pace of legislative repeal, often hindered by bureaucracy, leads to stagnant processes that leave people exposed, highlighting a pitfall in the legislative process that needs to be addressed.

References and Further Reading

United Kingdom - The Napoleonic Wars. (Encyclopedia Britannica).

7 negative effects of the industrial revolution. (History)

R (on the application of Bernard) v Enfield LBC (2003) HLR 27, CA; R (on the application of Bernard) v Enfield LBC [2005] UKHL 66, HL.

R (on the application of McDonagh) v Enfield LBC [2018] EWHC 1287 (Admin).

‘Decriminalising rough sleeping and begging: Calls for repealing the Vagrancy Act 1824’ (House of Lords Library)

‘Homeless people are still being arrested under a 200-year-old act criminalising rough sleeping’ (Independent)

Scrap the Act: The case for repealing the Vagrancy Act (Crisis)

Human rights challenges to local authority homelessness decisions (Shelter)