Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2016
Burials and cremations might not be the most eye-catching subjects that we deal with in the Scottish Parliament, but they are a vital part of everyday life. It is fair to say that their rising cost is becoming a concern for the public. Outside of perhaps buying a house or paying for a wedding, paying for a funeral or a cremation is probably the next highest-cost item a family may face in their lives.
The industry is making handsome profits—they are up by 32 per cent to £85 million. Although the bill does not provide the power to intervene in the consumer market and regulate funeral directors’ service charges, it perhaps offers some hope for families in some local authority areas who pay incredibly high prices for lairs and for family interments in comparison with others.
As the convener of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee noted, we heard that the cost of buying a lair and paying for an interment service in the Western Isles is about £700, while the cost in East Dunbartonshire is nearly £2,800. I do not make that point to single out and criticise East Dunbartonshire; rather, I do so to bring it to the Scottish Government’s attention that such wide variations exist. If we can influence that through the bill, I hope that we will do so.
As a few members have said, the overall costs of the average funeral service are about £3,000. However, when the costs of providing a reception and buying a headstone are added on, the cost for families can rapidly increase beyond that. It should be no surprise that Citizens Advice Scotland told us that there has been a 35 per cent increase in the number of people seeking help with funeral issues and affordability.
I know that our Government is doing what it can through the use of the social fund to help families who are in difficulty, and I hope that the review of funeral costs being undertaken by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights will make further progress. The UK Parliament might also want to look at the escalating costs of funeral directors’ services to see whether regulation of the industry is required.
The Local Government and Regeneration Committee had pretty clear views on the issue of proximity—how far a crematorium should be from housing developments. We considered that the 200-yard distance should be maintained. It should also apply both ways, so that new housing cannot encroach within that distance of an existing crematorium. I understand that the Government’s view is that that is best left to local planning authorities, but I hope that any guidance notes that accompany the bill will at least express the opinion that the distance should be observed.
During the bill’s consideration in committee, I raised the issue of how record keeping might assist families who are keen to know as much as possible about their family history. From time to time, I visit Kilmarnock cemetery, where I occasionally come across headstones on which the names may—or may not—be connected to my family. It may come as a surprise to most people—although not to my colleague, Stewart Stevenson, who is sitting to my left—that there is no information to directly link a person who is buried in a cemetery in Scotland with the national death record to tell us who that person was.
As the generations move on, the risk is that the link will be broken completely, with no one surviving who can connect one with the other. I am really pleased that the Scottish Government will see whether burial and cremation records can be linked directly to the national death records for the first time in Scotland. That would be a simple but great step forward that would help current and future generations to be more certain about their family’s history in the communities where they lived.
The bill modernises aspects of the burials and cremations service and introduces modern and consistent practice where it can. Some key issues for the public remain—principally the rising costs of funerals, cremations and associated services. I hope that, when the bill comes back to us at stage 2, it will address those concerns in so far as our powers allow us.
16:59