Begging and Vagrancy: Prosecutions
(asked on 20th February 2026) - View Source
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what data her Department holds on the number of prosecutions under the Vagrancy Act 1824 in the last five years.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds management information which shows the number of offences charged by way of the Vagrancy Act 1824 in which a prosecution commenced. The table below shows the number of these offences from 1st April 2020 to 30th September 2025.
2020-2021 | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | 2023-2024 | 2024-2025 | April - Sept 2025 | |
Vagrancy Act 1824 | 1,079 | 1,222 | 829 | 662 | 633 | 335 |
Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System | ||||||
The figures relate to the number of offences and not the number of individual defendants prosecuted. It can be the case that an individual defendant is charged with more than one offence against the same complainant. No data are held showing the final outcome or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at finalisation.
Volumes provided for the financial year 2020-2021 have been impacted due to court closures and recovery during Covid-19 from Mid-March to the end of June 2020.