Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the effects on divorced partners of their exclusion from widowed parents' allowance; and what consultation his Department has undertaken on the potential financial effect on children of that policy.

This is a long-standing position in bereavement benefits. It will continue under the new Bereavement Support Payment, the provisions of which were debated by this House during the passage of the Pensions Act 2014.

Those who are divorced have access to income-related benefits in the same way as other lone parents .