RISING costs are causing people in the North-East to hold DIY funerals and bury their loved ones in their back garden, MPs have heard.

Labour backbencher Emma Lewell-Buck, below, warned people are being forced to sell their possessions or falling into debt by taking out high-interest payday loans to fund a decent send-off for their relatives.

The Northern Echo: Emma Lewell-Buck

She pressed ministers to tackle "funeral poverty" by holding a UK-wide review of funeral service costs and to reform a Government social fund designed to help low-income households.

Funeral directors should also be required to let people know the price of a "simple service" to make it easier for people to choose an affordable service, the South Shields MP said.

Moving a ten-minute rule motion on Funeral Services, Ms Lewell-Buck told MPs that a Royal London report suggested 100,000 of the 500,000 families bereaved each year struggle to afford the cost of a funeral.

She said the problem will get worse as the price of a service accelerates faster than inflation, with the average cost standing at £3,551.

In some areas of the country the price may approach £7,000 due to issues over burial space availability, MPs heard.

Ms Lewell-Buck told the Commons: "One woman from my area approached the Citizens Advice Bureau with unmanageable debts.

"She had been unable to get the money together to pay for a headstone for her brother's grave.

"She ended up applying for a payday loan and the cost of repaying this debt had quickly got out of control.

"Sadly her story is not an isolated one.

"Royal London estimates that 110,000 people are living with funeral debt, with each person owing over £1,300 on average.

"As well as rising debts, we're also seeing people turn to alternatives to the traditional funeral.

"Some are holding do it yourself funerals and even having to bury their relatives in their back garden.

"A number of companies are offering cut-price funerals including direct cremations that have no formal service attached to them.

"Increasingly bereaved individuals who simply cannot afford a formal service are faced with having to opt for a public health funeral - or what used to be referred to as pauper's funerals.

"When nobody else is able to take responsibility for handling a person's remains, the local authority ends up having to step in.

"People have no control over this service and of course there is a cost to the local authority as well.

"The Bill I wish to bring in would have two main objectives - it would identify ways of reducing funeral costs by requiring the secretary of state to conduct an over-arching review of funeral affordability in the UK.

"Secondly, it would take immediate steps to help hard-pressed households facing funeral poverty via specific measures to reform the funeral payments social fund system by introducing a simple funeral."

Ms Lewell-Buck said the review would need to consider the amount of burial space available, how deaths are registered, the impact of competition between private and local authority crematoria, and the support offered via the benefits system to people who cannot afford a service.

The claims of bodies being buried in back gardens was refuted by Rosie Inman-Cook, manager of the independent funeral advice charity Natural Death Centre, who said: "Funeral poverty is a growing problem, but [people who choose to bury their loved ones in their back garden] are generally well-to do.
"I talk to people who want to do home burials and I have never in 25 years come across anybody who has been forced to do it.
"People choose to do it, because if you have a nice garden, there is nothing nicer than to plant Granny in a nice corner of it."

Ms Lewell-Buck was given permission to bring in the Funeral Services Bill.

She asked for it to be given a second reading on January 23.

It is unlikely to become law in its current form without Government support or sufficient parliamentary time.