New Worker Banner

The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

The Final Cost-of-Living Crisis

by New Worker correspondent

We are all very well aware of the cost-of-living crisis, but one neglected aspect of this crisis is the cost-of-dying crisis that is driving increasing numbers of people into pauper’s graves.

Whilst the British are not as bad as Americans in terms of extravagant funerals and are not generally inclined to be frozen to be restored to life in a future century, funeral costs can give people a fatal heart attack. The average cost of a basic funeral is now £4,056 according to insurers Sun Life. Little wonder there has been a rise in pauper funerals, now politely called “public health funerals” so that it doesn’t sound too bad. These are carried out by local authorities to dispose of the mortal remains of those with no money, or no next of kin to take responsibility. Even direct cremations can cost £1,400.

Pauper graves are generally mass graves and are unmarked, although in one Liverpool cemetery pauper graves were once carefully laid out to serve as drainage thus keeping the paupers working even after death.

In the London Borough of Camden, the local paper the Camden New Journal reports there were 63 public health funerals last year. This is in a borough whose northern parts includes some of the most expensive houses in London.

Councils have variable policies, recently Camden pays for undertakers to provide for a “dignified service” including a coffin and a hearse to the crematorium or cemetery.

These 63 public health funerals cost the council £81,089, or £1,287 each. Local Labour councillor Kentish Town councillor Jenny Headlam-Wells, speaking after a high-profile funeral of a homeless woman, said “there are likely to be many more deaths of rough sleepers and socially isolated people in our borough in the future”. But Health chief Councillor Anna Wright added that: “The first thing to make clear is the majority of these people are not homeless people.” As we will see, being in work does not guarantee avoiding what working-class people regarded as the ultimate disgrace. Indeed, funeral clubs were in many places the first signs of self-organisation by the working class.

Further north, in Bradford the council spent £141,337 on 89 (an average of a slightly less basic £1,588) on them last year, the fourth year in a row that numbers have increased. Most were for men (68), 29 with no next of kin. Eighty-one were cremations with the others buried in their own grave. 2020/21 was the first year in which they spent a six-figure sum, £115,063 to be precise. In all, £658,353 has been spent by Bradford on 477 of them since 2014.

Marie Curie, the cancer charity, say that 90,000 people in the UK died in poverty in 2022.

The Quaker Social Action (QSA) has recently produced a report on funeral poverty for the United Nations: {Submission to UN Committee on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights on Funeral Poverty.}

The funeral business is well able to put up its prices because people do not generally spend time comparing prices when the need arises. In its December 2020 report the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reported that funeral prices increased above inflation between 2006 and 2019. It also concluded that “a significant proportion” of undertakers, large and small, were overcharging. Surprise, surprise. Jessica Mitford pointed that out in 1964 with her gruesome exposure {Death in America}. Councils also get in the act, by making the most collecting cemetery fees. The business is largely unregulated so anybody can set up shop. Many formerly local, family firms are now part of large companies, but the liveliest part of the Co-operative movement now seems to be its undertaking business.

The Quakers note that social security grants for those on benefits are not enough. In England and Wales, the Social Fund Funeral Expenses Payment (SFFEP) is administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The average award in 2020–21 was £1,838, 44 per cent of a “basic funeral”. In Northern Ireland the equivalent was £1,318, just 41 per cent of a basic funeral. In Scotland the average pay-out of £1,791 was 44 per cent. In all cases these included funeral director fees, transport, care of the body, coffin and officiant fees. They were capped at £700 in 2003 and frozen until 2020, when they increased by 43 per cent to £1,000, well below the increase in basic funeral costs in that period.

People who can least afford it have sometimes taken on expensive debt to cover basic funeral costs, particularly when death is unexpected. Sometimes it can take years for such debts to be paid off, which means that the distress continues much longer. The Quakers demand that UK, Scottish and Northern Ireland governments “must increase the capped element to at least £1,725 to bring it in line with funeral inflation and uprate it annually”.

They note that although awards are inadequate, all of them can be reduced further by the deceased’s estate being taken into account. The paperwork is very complex, and claimants must be in receipt at least one of nine benefits and tax credits to have the slightest chance of being eligible.

Having a low wage automatically disqualifies them, additionally the criteria for who is the responsible person is very complex and inflexible when there are family squabbles. Even severely disabled people unable to work or pay for the essential National Insurance are excluded.

The DWP is not always terribly helpful and, the Quakers allege, sometimes give misleading advice about their own rules. Their report also gives numerous examples of councils passing concerned people from pillar to post for ages. There are often delays about whether awards will be granted, resulting in funerals taking place under a cloud of financial uncertainty at a difficult time. In 2021, the same Quakers used mystery shoppers to show that many local authorities were obstructive about pauper funerals. Some were forcing cremation on grounds of costs, which for some religious groups is unacceptable.

Partners not married or in a Civil Partnership are ineligible for Bereavement Support Payment (BSP) established in 2017. It was only last year, after the Supreme and High Courts ruled that denying benefits to partners and children not in legal unions was illegal, that the Government drafted legislation to put that right, but nothing has yet been done. Some 65,139 bereaved partners missed out on BSP up to June 2022, additionally it has not been increased since 2017.

This is not perhaps the worse aspect of the austerity that has ruled Britain since 2010, but it demonstrates the tight-fistedness of the Tory Government.