c. 36) or the Cross Act was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom designed by Richard Cross, Home Secretary during Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's second Conservative Government, which involved allowing local councils to buy up areas of slum dwellings in order to clear and then rebuild them.

It formed part of Disraeli's social reform initiative aimed at the "elevation of the people" (the working class), a policy stated in his 1872 speeches at Manchester and Crystal Palace, and associated with his doctrine of One Nation Conservatism.

Also, key individuals, such as the philanthropist Octavia Hill, helped pressurise the government into passing the Act.

Many felt the Act was an infringement of such rights, including many within the party, who pressured Richard Cross against making it compulsory.

As well, it was passed in a time that the government adopted a predominantly laissez-faire attitude to politics.