Bereavement support
After a decade-long campaign, unmarried parents are now eligible to receive bereavement benefits
Jo Sedley-Burke
Chair, WAY Widowed and Young
Issue 65 | April 2023
After a decade-long campaign by a coalition of bereavement charities, cohabiting parents with dependent children are now able to apply for bereavement benefits.
On 24 April 2017, my life changed forever. Paula, my wife and partner of 20 years, died aged 45 of undiagnosed pneumonia.
My friends and family were amazing as I navigated the tsunami of grief that followed. But I had never met a younger widow until I came across WAY Widowed and Young, a UK charity that offers a peer-to-peer support network for anyone who’s lost a partner before their 51st birthday – married or not, with or without children, inclusive of sexual orientation, gender, race and religion.
The charity and its members literally saved my life as I struggled with my mental health. It is nearly six years since that dreadful day and to pay it forward I joined WAY’s board of trustees and am currently its Chair.
Jo and Paula
Support payments
What shocked me was that until now, the Widowed Parent’s Allowance and Bereavement Support Payment, which I received, were only available to bereaved families where the parents had been married or in a civil partnership. However, as of 9 February 2023, unmarried parents who lived together now qualify too, as long as they satisfy all the eligibility criteria. This follows a ruling by both the Supreme Court and High Court that found it was against the human rights of the children involved to discriminate against them on the basis of their parents’ marital status.
As many as 21,000 bereaved parents who missed out on these payments in the past may be eligible to claim for retrospective payments for Widowed Parent’s Allowance or Bereavement Support Payment going back to 30 August 2018. Some of these families will have been bereaved as long ago as 2001.
This is in addition to an estimated 1,800 families per year who will now be eligible to claim Bereavement Support Payments to help them cope with the financial challenges of a such a significant family bereavement.
“Many of the families who will now be eligible for back payments have endured years of financial hardship and lack of recognition as they waited for these changes.”
Ten-year campaign
The charity WAY Widowed and Young has been campaigning about this issue for more than a decade, alongside a coalition of other bereavement charities. WAY’s Campaign Ambassador, Georgia Elms, says: “We are very pleased to see that the government has finally taken action to right this injustice, but we are sad that it has taken so long to get to this point. Many of the families who will now be eligible for back payments have endured years of financial hardship and lack of recognition as they waited for these changes.”
WAY member Laura gathered more than 100,000 signatures to highlight this injustice after her partner of nine years Nigel died suddenly in February 2020, leaving her to bring up her two-year-old son Noah on her own.
Laura says: “In 2021, 3.6 million people were confirmed as cohabiting – a rise of 144%. This is simply a piece of legislation that is catching up with the way people are choosing to live their lives now and it’s good to see that finally the government are recognising this changing way of life.”
She adds: “For me, it was never about validating my relationship with Nigel. I knew the importance of our relationship and did not need a bit of paper to confirm this. For me, it’s the long overdue support for people who are cohabiting.”
How to make a claim
Claims for Bereavement Support Payment (for those bereaved on or after 6 April 2017) can be made online via the Gov.uk website here, over the phone on 0800 151 2012 or through a paper application form.
Claims for Widowed Parent’s Allowance (for those bereaved before 6 April 2017) will be processed by paper. Paper applications can be downloaded from the Gov.uk website or requested over the Bereavement Service helpline.
Please note that retrospective payments might affect previous and future tax, tax credits and benefits so people should seek independent advice from organisations such as Citizen’s Advice or Turn2Us before they submit a claim.
