Widowed Parent’s Allowance

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Statement and for advance sight of it. Last week the Supreme Court ruled that the denial of widowed parent’s allowance to surviving partners of unmarried couples with children is incompatible with the law, in upholding the appeal of Siobhan McLaughlin, who lived with her partner John Adams and their four children for 23 years, until John died in January 2014. John’s national insurance contributions would have entitled Siobhan to WPA had they been married.

In the judgment, the Supreme Court said:

“The financial loss caused to families with children by the death of a parent ... is the same whether or not the parents are married or in a civil partnership”.


The judgment relates to legislation in Northern Ireland, but unmarried couples are not eligible for widowed parent’s allowance anywhere in the UK, so the principle established by the Supreme Court clearly has wider implications for the rest of the UK.

Today’s Statement says that Ministers will think about it and get back to us but would the Minister consider conveying back to the department a sense of urgency about this? She must, I am sure, be aware that bereaved parents are already getting in touch with charities such as the Child Bereavement Network in light of the judgment to ask what will happen to them and whether the situation has changed.

Ministers clearly knew this was coming. It was always a possible outcome of the case but, in any event, back in March 2016, the Work and Pensions Select Committee in another place warned the Government specifically that they could be forced to change their policy as a result of this case. The committee produced a report in 2016 called Support for the Bereaved, which clearly expressed the view that excluding unmarried couples was unjust on the children.

The Government were pressed on this point during the passage of the Pensions Act 2014, which reformed benefits for bereaved people. They abolished widowed parent’s allowance and replaced it with bereavement support payment. That is payable for only 18 months as opposed to widowed parent’s allowance, which was payable until either the children grew up, or the widowed parent remarried or cohabited. When this House debated the regulations that came from that primary legislation on 21 February last year, I asked the Minister to explain the Government’s rationale for excluding unmarried couples. The response was simply to say that they would not extend it to cohabitees. The then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, cited complexity and said people could always get married if they wished to regularise their position.

Complexity is regularly cited by Ministers, but the DWP routinely judges someone to be cohabiting for the purposes of means-tested benefits on rather less evidence than the presence of four children in the house with parents who have been together for 23 years. Reference is often made anecdotally to toothbrushes, slippers and other evidence of the presence of a relationship. Clearly the process of making a judgment over whether two people are cohabiting is one with which the DWP is familiar and must have the means to do it. Indeed, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, when we were discussing those regulations, on 21 February at col. 10 GC, pointed out that the Armed Forces Pension Scheme successfully uses a definition of “eligible partner” to determine who may receive a pension.

It is also noticeable that the way that people lose widowed parent’s allowance once they have got it is, as I said, because the children grow up, or they get remarried or cohabit—so cohabiting is not enough to get the benefit, but it is enough to lose it.

Those benefit reforms were generally quite controversial because they resulted in money being taken away from families with children. The DWP itself estimated that 75% of bereaved families with children would get less support under the new system than under the old. Ministers have told us repeatedly that the reforms were not about saving money, but the Government’s own impact assessment told us that, although it would cost more for the first two years, in steady state it would save the Treasury £100 million a year. The Select Committee argued that the Government should use those savings to extend the system of bereavement benefits to unmarried couples.

I have some questions for the Minister. I understand that she may not be able to answer them all today, so I would be grateful if she would, if necessary, be willing to write to me if it is easier for her to do that. First, what assessment has the DWP made of the cost of bringing the legislation on eligibility for widowed parent’s allowance in line with the Supreme Court judgment across the UK? Secondly, does the department believe that the primary or secondary legislation governing the new bereavement support payments is compatible with the principles of human rights law? Thirdly, what is the current estimate of how many of those savings scored against the bereavement reforms will in fact be realised? Finally, will the Government now review bereavement provision in the light of both this judgment and the concern expressed around the House repeatedly about the impact of the reforms of bereavement benefits, especially on parents of young children? To be a bereaved parent trying to support and raise your children while dealing with their grief and your own is about as tough as it gets. Therefore, I urge the Government to act quickly and to do something to give people in that position both comfort and certainty.