Clause 27 - Bereavement support payment

Part of Pensions Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 5:00 pm on 4 July 2013.

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Photo of Gregg McClymont Gregg McClymont Shadow Minister (Work and Pensions) 5:00, 4 July 2013

The Minister refers to the spirit in which the clause is being introduced. No doubt that spirit is positive, but it is worth reminding ourselves of the evidence from the Childhood Bereavement Network and Cruse Bereavement Care, both of which gave evidence to the Committee last week. The Minister referred to conversations that he has recently had with bereavement organisations. Is it his view that the organisations that gave evidence last week support the measures in clause 27?

If we look back at last week’s exchange, it was quite obvious that there was a difference of opinion between the Minister and those charities and voluntary organisations. The first thing that Debbie Kerslake from Cruse Bereavement Care said was:

“One of the big concerns is that the period is being shortened, and that will be particularly seriously negative for those with younger children. For example, those who at the moment would be able to receive benefits until the child was no longer eligible for child benefit would be getting benefits for only 12 months.”

In other words, they would get the larger lump sum and then a monthly sum of around £400. According to Cruse—and it should know—that is

“a drastic reduction in the length of time over which families are supported, and we are concerned because we believe that more than 90% of families with dependent children will lose out under the proposals.”

The Minister intervened and said:

“Obviously, the figures are not in the Bill; it is the structure that we are debating.

We do not recognise the 90% figure that you give, on the basis that if someone gets £5,000 not £2,000, that is an extra £3,000. If they get £400 per month for a year, which is roughly similar to the current rate, the extra £3,000 is gain, and therefore the only bereaved families with children who will get less will be those who would otherwise have been on the benefit for several years and, as  you rightly say, this is focused on the immediate bereavement.”––[Official Report, Pensions Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2013; c. 26, Q56-57.]

I understand the point Cruse Bereavement Care and the Childhood Bereavement Network are making. Someone who claims this support for more than two years—I think that was the break even point—will lose out under these proposals. That is a serious matter worthy of consideration by the Minister. I take his point about responding to modern conditions. That is a theme of the Bill generally. But I would be interested to know whether there have been follow-up discussions with Cruse Bereavement Care and the Childhood Bereavement Network. Do they support these changes? It is pretty stark in the evidence. They say that 90% of current claimants would lose out under the new system.

Di Stubbs from the Childhood Bereavement Network said:

“We are very aware of the increase in funeral costs and things like that.”

It welcomes the lump sum. As far as I can see it does not see the lump sum increase in itself as a problem. But there really is an important point. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East, who is no longer in her place, made the point about universal credit. Di Stubbs pointed out to the Minister that three fifths of people currently receiving bereavement payments are in work. They are not claiming any other benefit. Di Stubbs suggested that adding the payments to universal credit—we take the Government’s word that universal credit will work efficiently from the start—would complicate the system for those claiming this support and who are entitled to this support. Yet the Minister’s aim is to simplify the system. There is a tension there too.

The Minister pre-empted a question I was going to ask. I wanted to ask about the cost of this new system. He said that it is projected to cost the Government, whichever Government it may be in the next Parliament, £110 million more. I take that to mean over the course of the next Parliament. After that this new system will produce savings. The Government should consider carefully the case made by Cruse Bereavement Care and the Childhood Bereavement Network regarding these changes. We can hardly think of a worse time in anyone’s life, I imagine, than a close bereavement. I have not experienced it myself. Inevitably in life it comes one way or another. That is the time when people are in difficult and vulnerable situations.

The Minister has said that that immediate period is very important and so in that immediate period of loss let us move the money around, save a bit of money in the long term and put more of it upfront. I can only refer him to what Cruse Bereavement Care and the Childhood Bereavement Network said on this issue. Di Stubbs said,

“That means that people whose child was 15 or 16, or 17 or 18 if they were in work, are the only ones who would gain under that system.”––[Official Report, Pensions Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2013; c. 27, Q57.]

They made a number of points about the moment at which a bereavement takes place. That immediate period is very difficult; it can be chaotic. I clearly remember Di Stubbs making the point that if someone has been bereaved, there is a sense that the bereavement payment  paid over time until child benefit eligibility is exhausted, is something that they feel that their deceased husband, wife or partner has paid for. It is something that they continue to provide after they have gone. I am not as convinced by the Minister’s explanation as I have been during other parts of the Bill and I urge him to continue to examine matter closely, because last week’s evidence was pretty striking. The Minister refuted the 90% figure and I hope that he refers to it in his response if it is wrong and can tell us by how much and why. Cruse Bereavement Care and the Childhood Bereavement Network were keen that some amendments be tabled to probe aspects of the clause. We did not manage to get the amendments down in time, but they are the experts and struck me as reasonable and informed witnesses. There may be a dispute about the calculations about losers, but it seems clear that people claiming the support for more than three years will receive less under the new system than they would from the current. Given that we are discussing the bereaved, I urge the Minister carefully to look again at the clause and its impact. What does he understand to be the position of Cruse Bereavement Care and the Childhood Bereavement Network?