Social Fund Funeral Payments

EDM number 638 in 1994-95, proposed by Clive Soley on 20/02/1995.

That this House notes with concern that Social Fund funeral payments are not available if the deceased person has left their body to medical science; considers this to be a penny-pinching response to an altruistic gesture of great value to the rest of the community; notes that Ms Hazel Cameron, a disabled, single parent, had to pay for the return rail fare from London to Glasgow and for the death certificate on her father to make the arrangements for the transfer of his body to a university and eventually to travel back to collect the ashes of the remains from the crematorium; deeply regrets that all the Department of Social Security could offer was a Social Fund loan; and therefore calls on the Government to extend funeral payments to relatives in the position of Ms Cameron.

This motion has been signed by a total of 67 MPs.