Regulation and Inspection of Funeral Services
There are many issues that will divide this House and many issues that will divide society, but one thing that probably unites all of us, and indeed society, is that we have a legitimate expectation of decent and respectful treatment for our dead. I do not think that is asking too much. The vast majority of funeral directors, crematoria and hospital morgues treat the deceased with the decency and respect that we would expect and hope for ourselves. Most of the apples operating in the funeral barrels, if I can put it like that, are good ones, but we all know that there are rotten apples in every barrel. It has long been recognised that this is a sector that operates in good faith and on a belief—often misplaced—that our expectations of the decency and respect to be shown to the deceased will prevail in all circumstances. I am not suggesting that Governments have shied away from this, pretending to turn a blind eye, as it were, but probably in the general scheme of things, until some recent high-profile incidents, they have not really thought to think about it, in the presumption that everything works well and as we would expect. We will all remember the Fuller inquiry and the interim report that came out from that. When I was the Local Government Minister, the then junior Minister at the Ministry of Justice, Mike Freer, and I worked closely on this. I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), with whom I worked closely some months back on a constituency case of hers. I am delighted to see her in her place, knowing the keen interest she has taken on behalf of her constituents. I asked the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin), on 22 January what changes were being proposed to licensing, or to bring in licensing, in the funeral home sector. The reply was—let me put it this way—benign. His written reply said it was a “complex and sensitive matter that demands careful consideration to ensure a response that effectively safeguards the public.” On the latter bit, we can all agree. It being a “complex and sensitive matter” is true. I would argue that it has already had that “careful consideration”. When one considers all the retail outlets and others—be they tattoo parlours, nail bars, cafés, burger bars, hairdressers, beauty salons and the like—that are regulated and inspected, it does seem strange that the funeral sector is effectively left to its own devices. I know that sometimes Government and Members of Parliament press for licensing, regulation or binding codes of conduct very much against the will of the sector and find themselves in this great tussle. But the Association of Green Funeral Directors, the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors and the National Association of Funeral Directors—I just want to pause to pay warm and fulsome tribute to the latter two for how they helped Mike Freer and me when we were Ministers trying to grapple with this when the situation was boiling up. Those three organisations, together with the Co-op, represent somewhere between 75% and 85% of funeral operators in this country. They are all desperate for either a licensing regime or an inspection regime. Society is effectively saying to the trade bodies, which have a bit of muscle but no teeth, that they should impose standards of operation across the whole of the sector. I think the country at large would welcome regulation and inspection, and the trade bodies, which represent between three quarters and 85% of operators, are also clamouring for that.