Tent cities could pop up across the UK as rough sleeping is decriminalised, critics of the policy say.
Ministers have announced plans to repeal the Vagrancy Act by next spring, meaning it will no longer be an offence to sleep on pavements.
But there are fears scrapping the 200-year-old law despite rising numbers of the homeless will mean more people camping on the streets.
Announcing the changes, Angela Rayner said she was ‘drawing a line under nearly two centuries of injustice towards some of the most vulnerable in society’.
The Housing Secretary pledged to increase funding for homelessness services with an extra £233million this financial year to provide alternatives to rough sleeping. She said: ‘No one should ever be criminalised simply for sleeping rough and by scrapping this cruel and outdated law, we are making sure that can never happen again.’
