Andy Burnham has pledged to end rough sleeping at ‘the earliest opportunity’ in his first speech as Prime Minister – despite seeing homelessness more than doubling in his last four years as Manchester mayor.Mr Burnham today promised to ‘finally end long-term rough sleeping across the UK at the earliest opportunity’ as he took the keys of No 10.Standing in Downing Street, he said the first instruction he would deliver as leader would be 'to end rough sleeping in our country'.He later added: ‘For too long, we’ve been told that ending rough sleeping will take decades or even that it's impossible. I'm not having that.’ ‘This is something a government can fix if it chooses to. Today, I’m choosing to.’And he said: ‘We'll get to work immediately, bringing together national and local government with the investment needed to get it done.‘This is the kind of Britain I want us to be – a country where everyone has the security of a roof over their head, and where no one is left behind or written off. Let's bring back hope.’But official data shows that rough sleeping more than doubled in Greater Manchester over Mr Burnham's last four years as mayor. Andy Burnham this morning visited homeless charity The Passage in London just hours before being crowned PM, which he said was the ‘best place to start’ ahead of his premiership Daniel Parnell, a former bricklayer and tattooist who now lives in a tent in Manchester, said: 'Burnham has done nothing for me' Mr Burnham today promised to ‘finally end long-term rough sleeping across the UK at the earliest opportunity’ as he took the keys of No 10This saw the number of rough sleepers across Greater Manchester rise to 197 in 2025 from 90 in 2021.And rough sleeping figures in 2025 were the second highest since Mr Burnham was elected mayor in 2017, despite numbers trending downwards to 2021. This is despite vowing in his 2017 manifesto for Manchester Mayor – in an echo of today's announcement – to end rough sleeping by 2020.The figures were collected as part of the annual rough sleeping snapshot, where every local authority in England counts the number of rough sleepers on an agreed night in November. And in a further blow to the new PM’s credibility, figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) show there were around 360 rough sleepers in March 2026 in the 10 local authorities that make up Greater Manchester. This was up from 335 in March 2025.The city now has the third highest rate of homelessness in the country – after Birmingham and London – according to housing charity Shelter, with one in 74 residents without a permanent home, relying on emergency accommodation, sofa surfing or sleeping rough. Reacting to Mr Burnham’s failure to tackle rough sleeping, shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly said: 'In his speech in Downing Street, Burnham promised he would "go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction to end rough sleeping in our country". 'But there is precious little detail on how this will be paid for. Burnham must come clean on what other MHCLG programmes have been salami-sliced to fill the gap.'In Manchester, Burnham promised to end rough sleeping, but failed because he didn’t do the hard work necessary. Now, again, he is making pledges without any plan for delivery.'If he is really serious about Government, he should lay out proposals cut welfare, fund defence and get Britain working again. The Conservatives are the only party that has done the hard work and set out the plan to do that.'And chairman of the Conservative Party Kevin Hollinrake previously warned that Mr Burnham’s record as Mayor of Greater Manchester ‘doesn’t stand up to scrutiny’.‘He has failed to deliver on his promise to end rough sleeping, despite hiking council tax to pay for it. And he has blown more than £100m on a cancelled ‘clean air zone’, wasting local taxpayers’ hard-earned cash.’He added: ‘The truth is, he is not fit to lead the country.’Mr Burnham this morning visited homeless charity The Passage in London just hours before being crowned PM.The incoming prime minister said his visit was the ‘best place to start’ ahead of his premiership, as he was seeing ‘the lives that are being turned around’.Speaking at The Passage, Mr Burnham praised the 'Everyone In' scheme which helped take thousands of rough sleepers off the streets during the pandemic.He said: 'We ran a scheme every night, 600 beds, called A Bed Every Night and we funded it through various different ways.'But we were the only place that was doing it and you won’t be able to get the numbers down if you’re the only place, and other cities, people are coming to Manchester.'So it taught me that the only way is to do this together. Everybody pulling in the same direction – 'Everyone In', as we did in the pandemic – because we did bring people inside in the pandemic and that’s what I’m saying as I go into Government today.'We did it then. We can do it now. Get the basics right. Put a care for people at the heart of everything that we do and just get this country working as it should again.'But Manchester City Council promised 10,000 new affordable homes yet only delivered 791 with Mr Burnham as mayor.And speaking to the Daily Mail in May, Daniel Parnell, a former bricklayer and tattooist, who is now homeless in Manchester, said of Mr Burnham: 'I know all about the skyscrapers he built with the help of our money. He added: 'Why couldn't he have spent some of that cash on social housing for Manchester's homeless?'Burnham has done nothing for me. The outreach workers sent by the council come once a fortnight and peer at me and ask if I am all right. That's it. I am on my own. What most people living in tents think is that the mayor has been unfair on housing.'