The Rt Hon Phillip Hammond

Quaker Social Action, 17 Old FordRoad,BethnalGreen, London, E2 9PJ

The Rt Hon Phillip Hammond

Chancellor of the Exchequer

HM Treasury

Horse Guards Road

London

SW1A 2HQ
Monday 16th October 2017

RE: Granting dignity to grieving families

Dear Mr Philip Hammond,

We are writing to ask that you lift the £700 cap on funeral expenses currently in place within the Social Fund Funeral Payment. All too frequently, the cost of a funeral imposes a crippling and unmanageable financial burden on bereaved low income families during what is an already impossible time. The funeral fund provides an important lifeline to those in the most acute financial need, but we believe that by lifting the £700 cap on funeral expenses, manygrieving families could be spared the emotional and financial burden of not being able to afford a respectful funeral for their loved one.

Whilst we encourage those who can to take personal responsibility to do so, we ask our government to ensure dignity in death for people who can’t afford a funeral. No one should be denied a simple, respectful funeral when someone they love dies. Now charities supporting the bereaved and representatives from the funeral industry are standing together to ask you to make a big difference to the lives of grieving families.

We ask that you raise the amount of money available for funeral expenses within the funeral fundin line with funeral cost inflation, which would increase the £700 to £1,377. This would increase government spending by £18,262,000, which is, in our view a small amount to ensure we have a safety net for grieving people that our country can be proud of. So the fund isn’t eroded over time, we ask that this figure be up-rated annually after that in line with the retail price index.

Public concern around funeral poverty is growing as our population ages and more and more people encounter financial instability following a funeral in their own families and communities. One in six people now will get into serious financial difficulty paying for a funeral.

Thefuneral fund was established in 1989by the Conservative Government to cover the cost of a basic funeral for families on qualifying benefits who would otherwise be unable to afford one. The amount that families can apply to cover funeral expenses (including funeral director fees, minister fees, transport and care of the body and a coffin) was capped at £700 in 2003. The real value of the £700 has eroded each year as a result of inflation. Spending on the funeral fund has only increased 4.5% since 1989 - this represents a massive decrease in real-term expenditure. Last year the Government spent £38.9 million on the fund – this is the lowest figure for ten years.

The widening gulf between funeral costs and the funeral fundnow stands at £2,355 on average. Many families who are eligible for the funeral fund suffer the trauma and distress of not knowing how they’ll afford to lay their loved one to rest. Families are forced into serious, unaffordable debt that often damages their financial stability for years to come and gets in the way of their ability to grieve.

Helen, 59, from Yorkshire:
“When my son Aaron died I was in bits. He’d been severely disabled and me and my husband cared for him for twenty five years. We’d always tried to save, but you don’t get much chance when you’re a carer. We applied for the funeral fund but were still left with over a thousand pounds worth of debt. Having this hanging over us was an awful reminder of Aaron’s death. I felt too ashamed to scatter Aaron’s ashes while we still owed money to the funeral director.”

Over the summer, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) consulted on a raft of reforms to improve the funeral fund. We applaud the DWP for their work in this area and support these modest reforms, but they fall far short of addressing the fundamental areas for improvement such as the inadequacy of the fund and the time it takes to process applications.

The inadequacy of the funeral fund to cover even a very basic funeral also presents a real problem for funeral directors, especially small and medium sized companies. As far back as 2003, funeral directors found it very difficult to provide families with a dignified funeral for the £700 made available through the funeral fund. Agreeing to do a funeral for this price would mean the company taking a loss. For families who rely on the funeral fund, even a very simple funeral would require them to take on substantial debt. Funeral directors face the risk that families may be unable to pay this back. Bad funeral debt is a growing concern within the funeral industry. Increasingly, funeral directors are left with no choice but to turn away grieving families who are reliant on the funeral fund.

We ask you as the Chancellor to take action to extend the funeral fund, which would spare grieving families the distress and indignity of funeral poverty at one of the most painful times in their lives.

We would like to arrange a meeting to introduce you to some of our campaign spokespeople who’ve been personally affected by funeral poverty and to discuss the issues in more detail. Please email so we can arrange this.

Yours sincerely,

Heather Kennedy
Fair Funerals campaigns manager on behalf of the Funeral Poverty Alliance

Co-signatories
National Association of Funeral Directors
Marie Curie
Church of Scotland
Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity
Cruse Bereavement Care
Together for Short Lives
CLIC Sargent
Gardens of Peace Muslim Cemetery
Association of Palliative Care Social Workers Scotland
Kensington and Chelsea CAB
Salford CAB
Bereavement Care Services Cumbria and Lancashire
National Bereavement Service

Fair Funerals campaign
is a project of Quaker Social Action.

Tel: 020 8 983 5059

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