Prime Minister Andy Burnham will write personally to every council in England on Armistice Day, Tuesday 11 November, asking each of them to draw up a specific plan to offer accommodation to any veteran sleeping rough before Christmas.

The move, announced by Downing Street on 7 November ahead of Remembrance Sunday, sets a new operating principle for national and local government: that no one who has served in the armed forces should ever be left to sleep on the streets.

“No one who has served our country should be left to sleep rough on our streets. It is a simple principle and, from now on, I am setting it as an operating principle for the whole of government, national and local,” Mr Burnham said.

£8.7m for veteran housing charities

To support the work of councils, £8.7 million is being shared between eight organisations across the United Kingdom under the Reducing Veteran Homelessness programme. The recipients are Veteran Housing Scotland, Launchpad, Alabare, The Riverside Group, Wigan Council, RBVE, SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, and Tom Harrison House.

The money will help housing providers offer specialist support to veterans with complex needs, including help with health problems, addiction and finding work. Councils are being asked to use part of the government’s wider rough sleeping funding to draw up their plans, working with local charities and housing organisations that already support the ex-forces community.

Part of a wider drive to end rough sleeping

The veterans drive is part of the Prime Minister’s wider commitment to end rough sleeping, which he set out as an instruction on his first day in Downing Street. The government says it has added £874 million to rough sleeping funding, taking the total to a record £4.4 billion.

Downing Street says the pledge is consistent with the Armed Forces Covenant, which most councils have signed. The most recent official figures estimated that 4,793 people were sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025 in England, a record high.

Veterans who are sleeping rough, and anyone supporting them, are being urged to call the UK-wide veterans’ housing helpline on 0800 9520774 for immediate support. Whether the pledge becomes reality will be tested first by the plans councils produce in response to the Armistice Day letter, and then by whether veterans are in fact offered a bed before Christmas.