Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what (a) guidelines and (b) service level targets her Department has issued to Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages on issuing a (a) death certificate and (b) certificate for burial to a deceased person's next of kin once the death has been registered.

The General Register Office for England and Wales provides written guidance to registrars that details the procedures to follow on the registration of a death.

The statutory timescale to register a death that is not subject to coronial investigation, is five days. Death certificates are available as soon as a death has been registered and, in most cases, they are requested by informants at the time of registration. Similarly, the certificate for burial is normally issued immediately following a registration.