My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this remedial order, which was laid before the House on 13 October. It will extend the higher rate of bereavement support payment and its predecessor, widowed parent’s allowance, to bereaved cohabitees with dependent children. These benefits can currently be paid only to survivors who were in a legal union—that is, married or in a civil partnership—with the deceased on the day they died.
In the McLaughlin judgment in the Supreme Court, handed down on 30 August 2018, and the Jackson case in the High Court, handed down on 7 February 2020, the legislation on WPA and the higher rate of BSP respectively was declared incompatible with Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This article requires all rights and freedoms set out in the Act to be protected and applied without discrimination. In both cases, the courts found that, by restricting eligibility to those in a legal union, current legislation discriminates between children on the grounds of the legal status of their parents’ relationship.
This order provides a remedy for both Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It does so by amending the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992, and the Pensions Act 2014. I am satisfied that the provisions of the order are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has reported on this draft order and recommended its approval.
I will put this draft remedial order into some context. It was in 1925 that financial assistance following a bereavement, in the form of national insurance pensions for widows, was first introduced. This was open to all widows whose husbands fulfilled the contribution conditions, paid at a flat rate with additional allowances for children. This reflected the widely held expectation at that time that a woman would not return to work after marriage.
Further reforms culminated in the introduction of three new bereavement benefits: widowed parent’s allowance, bereavement allowance and the bereavement payment, all in 2001. WPA replaced widowed mother’s allowance, and extended support to both widows and widowers with dependent children. Like its predecessor, it was intended to provide ongoing financial support following the death of a spouse or, from 2005, a civil partner.
The bereavement payment was a one-off payment for surviving spouses, both with and without dependent children. Bereavement allowance was a short-term payment for widows and widowers aged 45 or over with no dependent children. It was not possible to get both widowed parent’s allowance and bereavement allowance.
It became evident that this system of bereavement benefits, based on outdated assumptions, was complex to understand and administer, and could be unfair to claimants. With universal credit’s introduction—a benefit designed to help with ongoing living costs—there was a need to look again at the whole package of bereavement benefits, but especially widowed parent’s allowance, which could be paid for the same purpose. So we modernised bereavement support by introducing a new benefit, the bereavement support payment, from 6 April 2017, to help with the more immediate costs of bereavement and to allow for a period of adjustment.