The lights were steady. The script was rolling. Then something shifted — not in the rundown, but in the room. A guest’s voice broke, and so did the rhythm. Jon Kay halted the segment, but the moment had already landed. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t polished. And somewhere in that raw pause, the broadcast stopped being a show and started feeling like something else entirely

BBC Breakfast’s Jon Kay brought the programme to an abrupt halt as he delivered some “shocking” news.

During today’s instalment of the popular BBC programme, presenter Jon, 55, and Sarah Campbell returned to our television screens as they brought viewers the latest updates from across Britain and globally from the famous red sofa.

Nevertheless, the mood in the studio shifted dramatically as Jon revealed the “shocking” figure of fatalities linked to homelessness.

Addressing audiences at home, he declared, “Now these are some shocking figures to give you. Deaths among the homeless rose to almost nine percent last year. That’s according to an organisation that monitors homelessness in the UK.”

Sarah added: “The Museum of Homelessness says that at least 1,600 people died in 2024. That’s up from around 1,400 in 2023,” reports the Express.

Jon then disclosed: “Of those people, 11 were children, four of which were babies under the age of one.”

Sarah interjected: “Despite the overall rise across the UK, the numbers of homeless people dying in Scotland and Wales actually fell in 2024.”

The pair were accompanied by Museum of Homelessness co-founder Matt Turtle, who confessed he is “not shocked” by the results.

He stated: “We have been carrying out these investigations for several years now and every year we are reporting rises. For many viewers they will find it shocking because we are talking about some of the hardest stories our society can create.”

Matt went on to say: “I know the things that are happening and so I have to remind myself.

“The thing that really does shock me is when we are going through some of the human stories and seeing what people are experiencing in towns and cities around the UK, that’s what really breaks my heart.”

Jon queried: “Do you think the actual figure could actually be higher than what you have come up with?”.

Matt confessed: “Oh absolutely, they are definitely higher. We know they are higher because not all councils give us information. So much information we get is anonymized because the council is returning a number to us in a form of a freedom of information request.

“So we don’t even get to remember people by their name a lot of the time so we know because not all the councils submit to us, we know the figure is higher and that has brought out another research as well.”