Bereavement

Debate between Stephanie Peacock and Grahame Morris

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris]

As always, the right hon. Gentleman makes eminently sensible points born out of his experience with the all-party group. The three suggestions or demands that I have put forward are those that are identified by the three charities I mentioned earlier, but certainly personally I do agree with him on vaccination, funeral arrangements and so on.

I would like to ask the Minister to look at the issue of cross-governmental co-ordination and improved focus on these issues. I understand that the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) is often identified as the Minister for bereavement. I am delighted that we have the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) as the Minister today, but we certainly need a clear ministerial lead on bereavement to ensure there is proper co-ordination on the issues raised by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and others. Otherwise, bereaved families will continue to slip through the net and be passed from pillar to post, which is distressing and frustrating.

A bereavement standard would benefit business and the bereaved by providing a clear, concise and consistent process to close accounts when a loved one dies. A bereavement standard would establish, first, an agreed timeframe for companies to respond to bereavement enquiries and settle outstanding customer balances. Members will be aware that the existing arrangements, the Tell Us Once service to which the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) referred, applies only to the public sector, and not to private companies, utilities and banks. Secondly, a bereavement standard would establish a dedicated bereavement customer care direct email channel for each company to handle such cases and avoid customers waiting on calls. Thirdly, it would establish the standardisation of paperwork needed to close an account, with a view to accepting—this is a really important point in the age we live in—digital documents wherever possible.

I anticipate that the Minister will, in his reply, refer to the excellent bereavement standard that already exists in the public sector. The Tell Us Once service is working well, ensuring that bereaved people do not have to go through the trauma of telling every single Government Department that they have lost a loved one, but we need exactly the same in the private sector to cover banks, utilities, insurance companies and more: a standard process across all organisations and companies, with specifically trained staff dealing with bereavement and an agreed timescale to close accounts and resolve issues. There is nothing more distressing than when such inquiries drag on for months and months.

At one of the most challenging times in life, I hope we all agree—this is a cross-party issue; I am not seeking to make a party political point here—that families should not have to spend hours going back and forth with companies, waiting months to close an account. Research from Settld and Cruse Bereavement Care shows that the vast majority of bereaved people described the administration processes as time-consuming and stressful. A quarter found it traumatic, especially having to phone so many individual companies and repeat time and again, “My husband/wife/father/mother has died.”

The single most important action the Government can take to support families would be to introduce a digital death certificate. This would enable families to close accounts quickly, initiate probate and engage specialist services such as Settld to deal with the administration following a death. When asked to introduce digital death certificates, in a written response, a Home Office Minister responded:

“There is currently no provision in law to issue a death certificate other than in a paper format.”

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate him on his powerful speech. Will he join me in calling on the Government to issue clear guidance for families who have lost a loved one who suffered from industrial diseases, such as the many miners that he and I represent, to ensure that those families receive the compensation that they are entitled to?

[Grahame Morris]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am tempted to go off at a tangent, because it is an issue that I feel terribly passionate about, particularly given the age of many miners and their widows, who have to deal with the complications with utility companies and so on, which will not accept digital death certificates. There are complexities when the cause of death is an industrial disease such as pneumoconiosis and the complications of it. It is a very important point, and the Government could do something about it by issuing guidance to assist those families.

There is currently no provision to issue a digital death certificate. As I said, when asked, the Minister said it was not possible to issue a certificate except in a paper format. However, time and again, when concerns have been voiced about digital exclusion, we have been told that there is a policy of “digital by default”—indeed, the Government have estimated that by moving services to digital channels, they could achieve savings of up to £1.8 billion a year. Digital by default should not only deliver savings to the Government, but should help better serve the people we represent.

The Minister is, I hope, aware of the widespread support for the bereavement standard. A YouGov poll showed that 80% of the British public agree with all three of the proposed bereavement standard elements. Indeed, an early-day motion tabled by yours truly, No. 818, “Supporting grieving families through a bereavement standard”, has been signed by 53 Members of Parliament from eight political parties, including, I think, the hon. Members present today, and almost 92,000 have signed the petition by Settld, Cruse Bereavement Care and Sue Ryder. So, potentially, through the Petitions Committee we might have an opportunity for a longer debate if the Minister cannot be persuaded of the arguments tonight.

Fundamentally, this is a debate about care and compassion. Bereavement is a life experience that, sadly, will affect each and every one of us at some time. Coping with the loss of a loved one requires time and space to grieve. Some companies, to be fair, show immense care and compassion to employees at such times, but not all companies do.

Bereavement and death are the ultimate equalisers; both will come to us all. The pandemic, the scale of the loss, a nation in mourning should focus all of our minds and give us the strength to act. We have an opportunity to create a caring and compassionate system—one that can assist bereaved families at the most difficult time that they will experience in life. So, Minister, I ask for a positive response and a promise of progress on the three issues raised today—the bereavement standard, digital death certificates and statutory bereavement leave.