Unmarried parents must get bereavement pay - MPs

The government must urgently act on its pledge to extend bereavement payments to co-habiting couples, a cross-party group of MPs has said.

The group wants ministers to comply within three months of court rulings that say limiting the benefits to married couples breached human rights.

A Labour MP behind the move said current rules "punished" the children of unmarried parents.

Boris Johnson vowed last year to "remedy" the "injustice".

Campaigners said around 2,000 co-habiting families a year lose out on the payments, made to individuals whose husband, wife or civil partner has died.

Ministers pledged in July last year to extend the payments to cover co-habiting couples with children, but are yet to bring forward proposals.

The Department of Work and Pensions said it was "carefully considering" how to implement the change.

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Bereavement Support Payment is a benefit paid to families for 18 months if a husband, wife or civil partner dies - but unmarried partners are ineligible.

It is awarded at different levels according to individual circumstances, but can rise to almost £10,000 if a couple receives child benefit.

In February 2020, the High Court found denying co-habiting parents the payments was against their human rights.

It followed a similar judgment at the Supreme Court in 2018.

MPs and child poverty campaigners have been lobbying ministers since then to update the legislation to reflect the ruling.

'Punishing children'

Such a law was not included in last week's Queen's Speech - when the government set out its legislative programme for the coming year.

On Wednesday, a group of 54 MPs signed a symbolic amendment to the programme, calling on ministers to "fully remedy" the situation by complying with the rulings within three months.

It was later defeated by 366 votes to 265.

One of the MPs to sign the amendment, Labour's Stella Creasy, said it would support "some of the most vulnerable people in our communities".

She added that figures from the Child Bereavement Network showed "every 22 minutes in this country, a child loses a mother or a father" and risked losing their home or their family circumstances as a result.

'Vital' support

Ms Creasy said: "It's estimated 2,000 families a year who find themselves in that horrific situation - many more who will have done because of Covid - are then not eligible for financial support.

"The reason they are not eligible is something very simple. Because the state has decided that because their parents are not married those children must be pushed in to poverty."

She added: "The government knows it has to remedy this situation, because otherwise we are punishing children for the decisions that their parents have made."

A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said it was committed to extending the payments to co-habiting couples, adding: "We understand how vital this support is to families.

"We are carefully considering the detail and implementation which we will outline in due course."