Funeral Premises: Environmental Health Inspections

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mark Sewards]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the example of Scotland, which I encourage the Minister to consider. I think the Government should consider everything the hon. Gentleman set out, which I will come on to.

This debate is about a fundamental issue that many of us find difficult to talk about—death. The treatment and dignity of our dead is not typically a subject for dinnertime conversation; those who have experienced bereavement, which is most of us, know how complicated and emotionally overwhelming it can be. At such a vulnerable time, one of the few sources of comfort should be the reassurance that a trusted funeral director is caring for a loved one with dignity, professionalism and respect. The vast majority of funeral directors live up to and often exceed such expectations. People’s trust has been betrayed by a very small number of rogue operators. Each stunning revelation about a rogue operator —in some cases, they have even desecrated remains—has a compounding effect on the public’s consciousness. People used to believe that the funeral sector was regulated, but they now know that it is not regulated, and they worry about the consequences of that for their families.

There are a variety of options open to the Government to solve this problem. Empowering local authorities to carry out environmental health inspections, which I will get to, is one of them; introducing a national standard is another; and empowering trade bodies should also be considered. Ultimately, however, we have to establish an independent statutory regulatory regime. I want to be clear that inaction is not an option that we should consider. I firmly believe that statutory regulation should be introduced for this sector. However, that will take time and primary legislation to achieve, so we need to consider our options for such regulation and what can happen in the interim.

Environmental health inspections could act as a stopgap before full regulation, or become the statutory regime itself, or both. However, there are differing opinions. I have spoken to representatives of the funeral service industry, including from the two largest trade bodies: the National Association of Funeral Directors, or the NAFD; and the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors, or SAIF. I have also had discussions with Co-op Funeralcare, having visited its premises in Leeds. I am also very pleased to serve as the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on funerals, coroners and bereavement, which brings together many organisations from across the sector, as the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) said in his intervention.

Every person and every operator who I have spoken to about this situation is appalled by the cases they have seen. They know how vital public confidence is to the funeral profession. They want the reassurance that a statutory regime will come into place, although views on what it should look like definitely differ.

Environmental health inspections could help to build back trust, but only if there is a unified national standard that funeral premises must adhere to. But that is precisely what we do not have right now: there is no statutory inspection regime in relation to the services provided by funeral directors. My constituent Cody put it best when she said that it is harder to set up a burger van than it is to set up a funeral home. Shockingly, she is right about that.

There are no routine checks or minimum standards of funeral homes outside those established by the trade bodies. The Government are still considering the Fuller inquiry’s recommendations on funeral sector regulation and inspections. I am very grateful for the engagement that I have had on this issue, particularly with the Ministry of Justice, including with the Minister for Victims, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones). She met me and some of my constituents towards the end of last year, and she was phenomenal in that meeting.

However, I will take this opportunity to ask the Minister who is here today: what assessment has her Department made of the Fuller inquiry’s recommendation to establish a statutory regulatory regime for funeral directors in England? I appreciate that that is really a question for the Department of Health and Social Care, but given that it also affects her Department, I hope she has a view on it.

That question matters because of the steps that the Government have taken in the past. In May 2024, the Ministry of Justice and the then Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities wrote to all councils in England to strongly encourage them to inspect funeral premises. The letter said that this was to reassure the public that the sector as a whole is safe. That was a welcome step at the time, both for the public and the sector, but those visits were never intended as technical deep-dive inspections. Instead, they were conducted to check whether everything was generally in order.

The NAFD supported those visits, and it encouraged its members to co-operate and demonstrate the high standards required of them. It advised the environmental health officers on good practice and hosted webinars to help members to prepare for their visits. However, most of those EHOs had limited experience of visiting funeral premises. It is also unclear the extent to which local authorities communicated their findings back to the Ministry of Justice and to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Has the Minister’s Department collated the information that was collected through those 2024 inspections? If it has, will it use that information to inform any position that it might take in relation to funeral sector regulation?

In my view, it is concerning that those inspections failed to identify the problems that came to light when my constituents needed help. Leeds city council participated in those inspections, but to my knowledge it did not inspect Florrie’s Army or identify it as a provider of concern at the time.

That also highlights a wider issue. There is scope for environmental health inspections to be carried out by local authorities and EHOs, but that approach would probably be best employed as a short-term or interim option. It must not act as a shield against wider regulation of the funeral industry. Environmental health officers may not have the relevant sector-specific experience, but they have the skills in overlapping elements, such as infection prevention, premises hygiene and safety. The benefit of utilising EHOs is that a move to expand their remit would not necessarily require primary legislation in the short term. It would be the quickest route to ensuring some sort of Government-backed regular inspections regime, but the issue of national standards would still be outstanding.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

We need regulation. One story of the mismanagement of a loved one is one too many. Does the hon. Member agree that in certain faith communities—and especially in the Jewish and Muslim communities—the expediency with which people wish to bury their loved ones must be taken into consideration within that regulation?

[Mark Sewards]

I could not agree more. Any regulatory regime introduced nationally needs to take into account how different faiths and cultures bury their dead.

In order for environmental health officers to conduct their work properly, they would need the backing of the Local Government Association, but it recently indicated in comments to the BBC that it would prefer the Ministry of Justice to take on the responsibility for a national scheme rather than leaving it at a local level. It would appear that the LGA has no desire to take on the responsibility for inspections on a permanent basis. Does the Minister agree with the LGA’s position?

There are other options available. Both the NAFD and SAIF require their members to undergo inspections, but they have no enforcement powers and there is no requirement for members to register with them as trade bodies—although about 80% of the sector’s players do. These bodies can expel a member, but they cannot stop them operating, and that is the gap that, in time, statutory regulation must fill. There is a strong argument for backing those trade bodies in relation to inspections. They have the respect of the industry, and with Government support and the possibility of placing their inspection regime on a statutory footing, they could play a central role within any future regulatory system. The Government may consider advising consumers to use only funeral directors who are members of the NAFD and SAIF to add an extra layer of protection.

Although this falls under a different Department—the Department of Health and Social Care—it would be remiss of me not to mention the Human Tissue Authority. Expanding its role so that it becomes the sector’s regulator is another option. The HTA has considerable experience and expertise, and expanding its remit may be more time efficient than establishing an entirely new independent regulator from scratch.

Where does this leave us today? In the medium to long term, the inspection of funeral premises undoubtedly needs to come through a statutory regulatory regime and a national standard. That is what the Fuller inquiry recommended, what the majority of the public would back and—importantly for me—what my constituents want. In the short term, the Government must move at pace and come to a decision that can reassure the public and maintain confidence in the funeral sector. That may mean utilising local authorities or the existing capacity of trade bodies to bridge the gap before regulation in the ways that I have described. I do not have all the answers, but any conversation must include the families and victims of these horrific crimes. I use the word “crimes” even though my constituents found nothing actionable when they contacted the police, because what happened to them was abhorrent. They have borne the greatest burdens, and any proposal must work for them.

I want to acknowledge the tireless work of Members from across the House, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), who has worked relentlessly on behalf of her constituents to ensure that the voices of the bereaved remain at the centre of every discussion of this topic. Action must be taken as soon as is reasonably possible, both to reassure the public and to recognise the good work of those who operate in the profession and the funeral industry. As everyone in the House knows, introducing primary legislation can take a long time. If we cannot act quickly, we need to consider every non-legislative solution outside of full statutory regulation.

What assessment has the Minister’s Department made of the need for environmental health inspections at funeral premises? What conversations, if any, have taken place between her Department and the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Business and Trade on statutory regulation of the funeral sector? Will MHCLG, through local authorities, be supporting environmental health inspections at any point, now or in the future, and will the Minister commit to wider engagement with the funeral sector ahead of proposed implementation of any kind of inspection?

Families deserve dignity, transparency and peace of mind; the sector deserves Government support in reassuring those families; and Cody, Zoe and Liam, and all the affected families, deserve the peace of mind that what happened to them will never happen to anyone ever again.