‘We hadn’t even grieved properly for my mother’: Families feel the impact of rising funeral costs | UK News

When Susan Bradley lost two loved ones in less than a year, there was no time to grieve.

She and her siblings first had to find £3,500 for the cost of their mother’s funeral.

And when Susan’s younger sister died just 10 months later, the same funeral plan was £1,000 more expensive and the family was already in debt.

Mrs Bradley said: “We hadn’t even grieved for my mother properly. And then it’s like having to cry for my sister too, but you can’t do it because you’re worrying about how you’re going to pay for the funeral.

“You feel cheated in some way because the focus is on the cost of the funeral and not where it should be, actually, on your loved ones. process.”

Eventually Susan, 51, who is an unpaid carer for her elderly father, got help from a charity but is still paying off debts.

His story is not uncommon. A basic funeral in the UK costs £4,141, a 4.7% increase on last year, which one in five families struggle to afford, according to the Sun Life Cost of Dying 2024 report.

A government-funded funeral expense payment is available to those receiving certain benefits, but it usually does not cover all funeral costs.

Figures obtained by Sky News through freedom of information (FOI) requests reveal a 23% increase in so-called “pouper’s”, or public health funerals between 2018 and 2023, in almost two thirds of councils in England.

These are provided by local authorities to those whose families are unable or unwilling to pay for a funeral, or who die alone in poverty.

In some parts of the country the increase is even more pronounced.

FOI data shows a 387% increase in public health funerals in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council, and a 250% increase in the London borough of Enfield, over the same five-year period.

The provisions are basic.

Some local authorities do not allow family and friends to attend. In most cases there is no service, no flowers, no headstone if it is a burial, although many councils opt for cremation.

But even these simple goodbyes can be difficult to secure.

Research from the charity Quaker Social Action, to be published next month and shared exclusively with Sky News, has found that more than half of councils in England and Wales are unlikely to follow public health funeral guidelines.

Lindesay Mace, co-manager of Down to Earth, a service run by the charity Social Quake Action, said: “It can be really challenging to get in touch with the right department within the council.”

She said the service, which supports those struggling with funeral costs, is now busier with calls for help than it was during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The departments that deal with public health funerals, municipal funerals, are varied – it could be the department of financial affairs, environmental health.

“We have had great difficulties as professionals who understand this system, much less as bereaved people.”

Ms Mace said the guidelines themselves needed to be updated, calling for “minimum legal standards for full council funerals, public health funerals [because] people win different things across the country and people shouldn’t be subjected to a postcode lottery.”

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up with the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Touch here

“We want this to include the requirement for an assisted funeral, because, unfortunately, the legislation does not require that the funeral be attended.

“Research has shown that denying these types of funeral rituals can actually have a significant impact on people’s mental health and their ability to grieve.”

A spokesperson for the Local Government Association said: “When arranging these funerals, councils will seek to ensure that the religious beliefs or wishes of the deceased are respected and that they are provided with a dignified funeral, whilst keeping costs to local taxpayers to a minimum.

“In many cases, the deceased has no family to organize their funeral, so there is no one to attend a ceremony, if one takes place, or to collect the ashes.

“Where there is a family, councils will often liaise with family members to arrange a funeral.”

But pastor Mick Fleming, who runs the Church On The Street charity in Burnley, said he had witnessed the devastating effects a council funeral can have on bereaved relatives.

Fleming said: “You can’t get a proper service, you can’t get the music, you can’t get a proper funeral. It makes people’s mental health worse. You can’t lay your loved ones to rest, you feel worthless, you feel like a failure. .”

See more information:
Paula Vennells faces questions from subpostmasters
20m fell onto road as storms threaten bank holiday
Orange cloud appears after ‘industrial incident’

Pastor Fleming’s charity tries to help families avoid this fate by paying for as many funerals as possible for those most in need in their community. He does not charge to perform a service.

He said: “I would say there must be, this is a guess, but there must be a 50-fold increase in the last two years, for us, of people coming to us who can’t afford the funeral, and it’s very, very sad. .

“When you have a service, it’s a personal tribute to the person. It’s about giving hope in a time of great suffering. Without that people seem to be lost, they seem to carry this anxiety that never goes away. You don’t understand the closure.”