Death Grant (Hansard, 2 May 1984)

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services announced on 2nd April a series of reviews of the social security system. The future of the death grant will be considered in the context of these reviews.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that this delaying tactic is acceptable, I would say, to no part of this House? Is it not a fact that the last time the death grant was revised was in October 1967? Is it not also a fact that the discussions on the Government document bearing on the death grant were completed by July 1982 and we have still had no reactions to the document? Is she satisfied with the speed with which the Government are approaching what is a very vital problem for thousands of people in this country?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, based on the latest figures (March 1984) available, the grant would need to be increased to £ 165 to restore the 1967 value. This would cost about £80 million per year extra in 1984-85 if other conditions for the grant remained unchanged. To extend such a grant to cover areas where at present no grant or only a reduced rate grant is payable, would cost a further £10 million, and the total cost, including administration involved in paying grant, would be about £120 million.
In answer to the second part of the noble Lord's question, the public response to the consultative document of March 1982, to which he referred, gave no clear support to any of the proposals put forward. As a result it was necessary to re-examine the whole question.

§ Lord Banks
My Lords, if the Government are committed to having a means test of some sort in this particular case, as the consultative document seems to suggest, will the Government consider doing three things: first, substantially increasing the grant; secondly, making it available in all cases without initial means test and thirdly, recovering it subsequently from estates over a certain size?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, the short answer to that is that I could not possibly give answers to that before my noble friend in another place has considered the results of the reviews in which the death grant is included.

§ Lord Banks
My Lords, would the noble Baroness like to put that suggestion to her right honourable friend?

§ Baroness Trumpington
With pleasure, my Lords.

§ Baroness Macleod of Borve
My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister whether she and the Secretary of State are aware of the enormous increase in funeral costs? They are now quite prohibitive. Further, in spite of the ribaldry in your Lordships' House, may I ask my noble friend to draw the Secretary of State's attention to what I have said in this House? Will she ask him, when this review is taking place, to try to find out the reasons for the enormous cost of burying somebody who is perhaps fairly close?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, I have great sympathy with my noble friend Lady Macleod over the ribald attitude taken by the House to a perfectly sensible question. On the assumption that an average funeral costs about £350, it would cost about £185 million a year extra to increase the present grant to cover the cost of a funeral at that price. The further cost of extending this increased grant to cover all deaths where at present no grant or only half-rate grant is payable, would be about £30 million, and the total cost of paying grant at this level to everyone would be £240 million.

§ Lord Blyton
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that only this weekend the cost of the burial of a woman in my area—a cremation with two cars—was £537? The family had to scrape to bury her. Does she not think that, apart from the grant, which I hope will be increased, there ought to be an investigation into the costs of undertakers and the ancillary services, because the cost of burying anybody in this country is now outrageous?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, the increase in the supplementary benefit single payment limit from £300 to £500 and other changes in the supplementary benefit capital limits announced in the last Budget will help to ensure that people receiving supplementary benefit are not required to draw on personal savings or other provision towards personal funeral costs to meet expenses that could otherwise be met through the scheme.
On the question of the high cost of funerals, I think I can only report what the noble Lord and my noble friend have said to my right honourable friend in another place.

§ Viscount Mountgarret
My Lords, I wonder whether it might not be possible to have all these matters index linked to the rate of inflation or, dare I say, deflation, and then these periodical reviews and questions would never arise.

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, in answer to my noble friend, if death grant were increased, national insurance contributions would have to go up, and they have risen substantially.

§ Baroness Jeger
My Lords, in view of the anxiety in the House about the increasing cost of funerals—and all of us recognise what a difficult job this is for those who do this work—would it be possible for the Government to refer the matter to the Office of Fair Trading so that perhaps we could get some report on the matter?
544 Secondly, does the noble Minister recall that on 29th March her noble colleague, Lord Glenarthur, told the House that an announcement would be made in due course? I think "due course" is the most meaningless bit of jargon that exists in our bureaucracy, but are we now not getting a timescale of undue course? After all, in due course, shall we not all be dead? Meanwhile, there are many poor and harassed families who are facing great difficulties. If it is the Government's intention not to increase the death grant, if the Government insist that they cannot afford to increase the death grant, why not tell the British public so?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, I think the best I can do in replying to the noble Baroness is to quote to her from a debate on 2nd April in another place, when my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State for Social Services said: We shall want to consider the death grant, together with the whole of social security over the coming years. Therefore, any course is better than no course, including due course.

§ The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw)
My Lords, perhaps I am going to be an exception which proves the rule in this case. I ought to be saying that the questions are taking a very long time. But I am going to do something quite different. I think it will be reasonable—and I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, will accept this—that I should congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, on behalf of the House on his 85th birthday, which I think is a very special occasion.

Noble Lords
Hear, hear!

§ Baroness Phillips
My Lords, how does one follow that? I should just like to ask the Minister how she can forecast in such precise figures, how many people are going to die next year that she can tell us exactly what it would cost if she increased the death grant.

§ Baroness Trumpington
I am terribly sorry, I could not hear.

§ Baroness Phillips
My Lords, it is one of the mysteries to which the noble Minister may not have the answer. How can she explain in such precise figures what it would cost to increase the death grant unless she knows precisely how many people of different ages will be dying next year?

§ Baroness Trumpington
I imagine it is what is known as a mean average.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, some of the major issues have already been raised. All 1 want to ask the Minister is one final question regarding the review which was supposed to be completed in July 1982. Will she answer the original question that I put to her? Is she satisfied that, on this desperately tragic issue, the Government are moving with sufficient speed when they have not yet responded to the result of that review, which is now almost two years old?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, I speak at all times on behalf of the Government, not on behalf of myself. Therefore it is no business of mine to say whether or not I am satisfied. The answer to the noble Lord is, yes.