Funeral debt on BBC
A woman who was supported by Quaker Social Action spoke about funeral poverty on Victoria Derbyshire
A woman who was supported by Quaker Social Action’s (QSA’s) ‘Down to Earth’ programme spoke on a BBC news programme this month about her struggle with funeral debt following her brother’s death.
Teresa Samuel told journalist Victoria Derbyshire on her eponymous news programme how spiralling cremation costs pushed her deeper into the red. Highlighting the problem of soaring funeral costs, which QSA has long been campaigning against, she said: ‘I was left with a bill of over £4,000, which I could not afford.’
The interview on 9 August was featured just days before new data was released that showed what QSA describes as ‘a dramatic variation in cremation costs at council-run crematoriums across the UK, and an eleven per cent average overall price rise since 2015’.
The Quaker charity also welcomed changes in the application process for the Funeral Expenses Payment recently announced by the Department for Work and Pensions. It says that that the changes will ‘speed up payments for bereaved families’ and follow months of QSA’s ‘evidence-based lobbying’. Claire Brandon and Lindesay Mace, both from Down to Earth, also spoke on the radio. The former talked on BBC5 Live about the importance of ratings for funeral directors, and the latter was interviewed on TalkRadio about funeral poverty.
Comments
Please login to add a comment
