Funeral Poverty

Debate between Chris Stephens and Emma Lewell-Buck

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

It should come as no surprise to my hon. Friend that I will address all the points he raises.

As I was saying, a record 8 million working adults live in poverty in the UK, with 14 million people overall living in poverty. It is little wonder that, for someone living day by day and hand to mouth, the final act of giving a deserving tribute to their loved ones is heartbreakingly out of reach. An estimated 81% of people have been unable to save for a funeral. Funeral poverty in the UK has now reached a record high of more than £160 million in 2017—a 50% increase in the last three years alone. There has also been an increase in people having to wait more than a year to bury family members.

The cost of a basic funeral is now £4,078, yet this can rise in some London areas to as high as a staggering £12,000. Around a quarter of families that cannot afford funerals borrow from friends or relatives, a quarter put costs on a credit card, and the rest take out loans or work out an instalment plan with funeral directors. Some even sell their belongings. It has been revealed recently that people are increasingly turning to crowd- funding websites to raise money for funerals, with JustGiving showing a 400% increase in people asking for money from friends, families and strangers to fund funerals for their loved ones. I cannot imagine having to seek support from strangers on a faceless website to pay for a loved one’s funeral.

My Bill and the “Support for the bereaved” report by the Work and Pensions Committee both called on the Government to negotiate a simple funeral service and to establish with the sector a reasonable cost for items required for a simple funeral. The Government claim that doing so would interfere with people’s choice but that they are working with stakeholders to agree what might be included in a standard package funeral. I hope the Minister can advise us what stage he is at after two years of discussions.

For those struggling to afford a funeral, there is state support in the form of the social fund funeral payment. It is accessible to those on certain benefits, but it is in absolutely dire need of reform. In 2017, out of the 41,800 applications for the fund, 16,900 were declined. Considering that the fund can be accessed only once funeral costs have been committed to—once a debt exists—that leaves almost 17,000 people struggling to pay. The DWP’s target to deal with claims is 16 days, yet the average between a death and a funeral is 13 days, and much less for some religions and cultures.

Those payments also categorise certain aspects of a funeral. The provisions refer to “other expenses” as being funeral directors’ fees, ministers’ fees and a coffin. These apparently optional extras have been capped for 15 years at £700. If the cap had kept up with inflation, it would be £300 higher today. However, funeral costs have far exceeded the rate of inflation, more than doubling since 2003.

I acknowledge the Government’s changes in recent years, such as allowing recipients to receive contributions from other sources without deductions, extending the claim period from three to six months after the funeral, and introducing both a shorter application form for children’s funerals and the electronic submission of forms. However, the stark reality is that, without exploring the regulation of the market and funding demand and establishing eligibility for the social fund before people commit to costs, the number of those in funeral debt will continue to swell. In 2016, the then Minister rejected calls for an eligibility checker, saying that that would cause more “confusion”. I find it absolutely impossible to see how someone knowing whether they are eligible to afford a funeral for their loved one before committing to one can cause more confusion than not knowing and being saddled with debt.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is making very important points about the social fund funeral payment system. Does she agree that it not only is confusing but adds considerable emotional stress for those going through the system if they wait so long for a decision as to whether they will get money, bearing in mind that the grant itself does not even meet some of the basic costs of a cremation, for example?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The process is indeed distressing and complex for many people. I think the forms that need to be filled in number 24 or 26 in total. When someone is grieving and trying to find the money to pay for a funeral for a loved one, filling in 20-odd forms and trying to have a clear head while doing so is nigh on impossible.

Today the Minister may well refer to budgeting loans as an option for helping families to pay for funerals, but I am sure he knows as well as I do that the figures for how many people apply for those loans for funerals are not recorded or kept centrally and that the average amount of a loan in the past year was only £420.

The Government should note that putting their head in the sand does not make this problem go away; it simply moves it around. A freedom of information request via ITV revealed that a 70% increase in public health funerals over the past three years has cost local councils up to £4 million. Historically referred to as paupers’ funerals, they are the last option when there is no one available to pay. It was also revealed that some local authorities were not allowing families even to attend those services. In short, taxpayers are paying for funerals one way or the other. Surely, making the fund fit for purpose is preferable to the scenarios I have outlined.

I am pleased to say that, where the Government are failing, others have stepped up. The Fair Funerals campaign—Fair Funerals is no longer in operation, but I thank it for its co-operation over the past few years—successfully managed to persuade one third of the industry’s members to display transparent, honest prices on their websites. The Co-op announced that it would invest a further £6 million in lowering funeral costs by introducing a best-price guarantee, reducing the cost of its cheapest funeral to £1,895, and the Competition and Markets Authority announced a review of the £2 billion funerals market earlier this year.

At Prime Minister’s questions last week, the Prime Minister was asked to meet a Conservative Member to discuss funeral poverty. The Prime Minister declined a meeting and went on to assert that

“the funeral expenses payments do continue to cover the necessary costs involved with funerals and cremations”.—[Official Report, 5 September 2018; Vol. 646, c. 160.]

That is completely wrong and contradicts the DWP webpage, which clearly states that the payment

“will not usually cover all of the costs of the funeral.”

It is also at odds with what funeral directors themselves are saying, with 95% reporting that Government funeral payments no longer cover even the very basic costs.

I appreciate that, in the past, Ministers have been unable to comply with all my asks on funeral poverty, so today I have only two main asks: a commitment to raising the social fund funeral payments and a commitment to introducing an eligibility check. Those two simple asks would make a world of difference.

It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who is not here with us today, and of the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess). Both are doughty campaigners on this issue.

Funerals are not a choice. Death shakes us and changes us forever. No one ever wants their loved one to pass away, and the debts associated with the funeral—or the memory of not being able to give them a decent send-off—loom over people for years. In austerity Britain, people are not just struggling to afford to live; they are also unable to afford to die. The Minister has an opportunity today to make some very small departmental differences that would ease this enormous burden on people in their darkest days. I just hope that, this time, he will.