A law that makes rough sleeping and begging illegal should be repealed, campaigners say after new figures revealed that authorities struggling to cope with Britain's homelessness crisis are driving an increase in its use.

Data obtained under a Freedom of Information request uncovered a 6 per cent rise in the number of recorded prosecutions under the Vagrancy Act last year, at 1,320, marking the first increase in four years.

Charities, politicians and police said the act, which makes it an offence to sleep rough or beg, was leading to vulnerable homeless people being “criminalised” instead of being signposted to relevant support services – and called for it to be repealed immediately.

Rough sleeping in England has surged by 165 per cent in the past eight years, with 4,677 people recorded to have been sleeping rough last year, according to government figures – although concerns have been raised that this data underestimates the scale of the problem.

New figures from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) reveal the number of people sleeping rough in London has surged to a record high, with more than 100 individuals sleeping on the streets for the first time each week.

The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Show all 10 1 /10 The Stats: Homelessness in the UK The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Sleeping rough up 165% from 2010 The total number of people counted or estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2018 was 4,677, up 2,909 people or 165% from the 2010 total of 1,768 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London rough sleepers up 13% The number of people sleeping rough increased by 146 or 13% in London since 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London accounted for 27% of people sleeping rough in England London accounted for 27% of the total number of people sleeping rough in England. This is up from 24% of the England total in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 64% of rough sleeps UK nationals 64% were UK nationals, compared to 71% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 14% of rough sleepers are women 14% of the people recorded sleeping rough were women, the same as in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 6% were aged 25 years or under, compared to 8% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Thousands of families staying in temporary housing Almost 79,000 families were staying in temporary housing in the last three months of 2017 because they didn't have a permanent home, compared with 48,010 in the same period eight years before Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Reduction in families living in temporary housing before Coalition government There had been a significant reduction in families living in such conditions before the Coalition government came into power, with the number having fallen by 52 per cent between 2004 and 2010 under the Labour government AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Families staying in temporary has risen since But the figure has crept up in each of the past seven years, from 69,140 in the last quarter of 2015, to 75,740 in the same period in 2016 and 78,930 at the end of last year Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Nearly 58,000 families accepted as homeless (2018) Nearly 58,000 families have been accepted as homeless by their local council in the past year (as of March 2018), equating to an increase of 8 per cent over the last five years Getty

Meanwhile, council spending on services for single homeless people in England plummeted, with a recent report stating it had fallen by £5bn in nine years, with local authorities now spending almost £1bn less a year on these services across England compared with 10 years ago.

Homelessness charity Crisis said the Vagrancy Act, which has been in place since 1824 and was abolished in Scotland nearly 40 years ago, was “obsolete” and that there were alternatives available to police, such as the anti-social behaviour act of 2014, which it said was a "more appropriate" way of addressing activity like aggressive begging.

Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe QPM, former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, backed the charity, saying: “The Vagrancy Act implies that it is the responsibility of the police primarily to respond to these issues, but that is a view firmly rooted in 1824.

“Nowadays, we know that multi-agency support and the employment of frontline outreach services can make a huge difference in helping people overcome the barriers that would otherwise keep them homeless.”

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said the act was "Dickensian" and "making many people’s situation even worse", and called for an end to the "out of sight, out of mind" attitude towards the problem.

She added: “Now is the time to act. I will continue to campaign until we have scrapped this cruel law and we take a more compassionate approach to the homelessness crisis we are facing in this country."

Conservative MP Tracey Crouch, who is also backing calls to repeal the act, described it as a "blunt instrument that doesn’t take a holistic approach to tackling the underlying problems of homelessness and rough sleeping".

Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, said the practice of “criminalising” homeless people under the Vagrancy Act was a “disgrace”, adding: “There are real solutions to resolving people’s homelessness – arrest and prosecution are not among them.

“Of course, police and councils must be able to respond to the concerns of local residents in cases of genuine anti-social activity, but we need to see an approach that allows vulnerable people access to the vital services they need to move away from the streets for good."

Local councils said that while they were determined to prevent rough sleeping but that this was becoming “increasingly difficult”.

Cllr Simon Blackburn, from the Local Government Association, with represents councils across England and Wales, said homelessness services were facing a £421m funding gap by 2024/25, which had “severely limited” the ability of councils’ outreach services to support rough sleepers.

“Government needs to use the Spending Review to fund councils sustainably to prevent homelessness in the first place, and to help them resume their historic role as major housebuilders of good-quality, affordable homes,” he added.

Responding to the calls, housing and homeless minister Heather Wheeler MP said: “No one in this day and age should be criminalised for having nowhere to live. I’m committed to ending rough sleeping for good and our Rough Sleeping Initiative is providing an estimated 2,600 additional beds and 750 more support staff this year.