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“I am grateful for this opportunity to raise a matter that is causing widespread concern – namely the lack of regulation of the provision of funeral services. That concern is felt by the users of the services, who are the relatives of the deceased, and by the providers of the services, the funeral directors themselves.”
These are the words opening a debate in Parliament on funeral services. They were spoken by Liberal Democrat MP David Chidgey, member of Parliament for Eastleigh.
The debate took place in Parliament almost THIRTY YEARS AGO.
Sadly, Baron Chidgey, as Mr Chidgey became, died in 2022, 25 years after he spoke to the House calling for regulation of the funeral sector on 17th December 1997.
Since that debate, 10 British governments, under nine different prime ministers, have failed to address the lack of regulation of the provision of funeral services.
And, in that time, more than 16 million people have died and had burials or cremations in the UK.
We have no idea how many of those funerals were unsatisfactory or cause for complaint, because, in England and Wales, there is nowhere for people to go to when things go wrong, unless the funeral director is a member of a trade association, in which case there are internal complaint resolution processes.
There is no public record of complaints about funerals. There is actually nowhere to go to complain, other than to the trade association (representing the company against which the complaint is made), if they are a member.
There used to be. There was once an independent Funeral Ombudsman Scheme. But the position was quietly axed by the funeral industry in 2002 because of lack of funding.
The late Professor Geoffrey Woodroffe, a highly respected consumer academic lawyer, lecturer and author, held the position of Funeral Ombudsman from 1994 until the role was abolished in 2002.
During his tenure there were two critical reports about the funeral industry by the Office of Fair Trading, and a third, damning report by the Consumers Association.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Fast forward to where we are now.
Multiple shocking instances of appalling behaviour by funeral directors have made headlines in the news in the last few years – horrific discoveries at Legacy Independent Funeral Services, Elkin and Bell Funerals and Florrie’s Army all led to police investigations, and in the two former cases, trials in court.
Robert Bush, Hayley Bell and Richard Elkin are all in prison. Amie Upton was investigated by police but ‘no potential crimes were identified’, despite the shock and trauma that bereaved parents experienced when she was discovered to have the bodies of their dead babies in her living room at home. Thousands of bereaved families are living with the aftermath and the knowledge that their loved ones were not properly cared for.
Just in this last week alone, there have been two stories in the press about theft of jewellery from dead people in the care of funeral directors, at B Livesey Funeral Directors in Chorley, and at Co-operative Funeralcare in Warrington. At the time of these offences, both companies were members of the main UK funeral trade association, the National Association of Funeral Directors. B Livesey Funeral Directors is now closed, Co-operative Funeralcare continues to be a NAFD member.
As a consequence of media coverage of these and other scandals, the government appears to be making the right noises about regulation; on 31st July, in response to the sentencing of Robert Bush, the government announced that it would develop “urgent plans to crack down on rogue operators in the funeral sector”
On 1st September, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Yvette Cooper, formally told the House in a written statement that the government would “bring forward comprehensive proposals to ensure respect and dignity for the deceased in every setting, to drive rogue operators out of the funeral industry, and to protect other families from suffering”. Ms Cooper said that government would update the House as work progressed and that it would set out its plans and a proposed timetable for implementation “in due course.”
On 5th October, a draft Research Briefing on regulation of the funeral sector was published, assessing the calls for regulation in England and Wales and the path to regulation in Scotland.
And the Law Society continues its work on reform of Burial and Cremation Law. They have published one report and have two further reports pending, with recommendations to government and draft Bills expected sometime in 2028
The wheels appear to be turning, albeit glacially slowly.
In the interim, and while we wait, complaints about funeral directors breaking what little law there currently is involving the funeral sector (by not complying with the Competition and Markets Authority’s Funerals Market Investigation Order 2021) appear to go nowhere.
A reminder that ALL funeral directors are required by law under the Market Order to display their prices in a standardised format, in a prominent position; in the windows of their premises, in public areas inside their premises and on their websites.
What happens if they don’t? It turns out, not much.
Anecdotal evidence indicates that complaints to the CMA about funeral directors breaking the law by not complying with the Order disappear into the workload of ‘the team responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance within the CMA’, with many complainants receiving an automated acknowledgement and then nothing. No information about any action taken, or any outcome to their complaint.
The actions that the CMA could take in response to being informed about a company ignoring their statutory requirement to comply with the Order include; writing to the company concerned, and, if the breach is considered sufficiently serious to be ‘material’, inclusion on the CMA website’s Register of Breaches.
We’ve looked at the CMA’s registers of breaches, both those pre 2024 and 2024 onwards.
No funeral companies are listed as being in breach of the Funerals Market Investigation Order 2021.
Lindesay Mace, of Quaker Social Action’s Down To Earth, wrote last year that by last June, QSA had complained to the CMA about more than 500 funeral companies and 12 crematoria who were not compliant with the Market Order. She stated that they continue to report 18 – 25 firms every quarter.
Presumably, the worst sanction that these hundreds of companies have received from the CMA is a stern letter. Maybe not even that. The CMA have published five such letters here.
So, the expensive and lengthy Market Investigation by the CMA has resulted in what exactly?
Five letters?
Each ‘Reserving the right to take further action if full compliance with the Order is not achieved in a timely manner’?
The CMA seem to be done with this area. They published their third and final annual review of market outcomes in the funeral sector in August 2025.
And so the widespread concern about the lack of regulation of the provision of funeral services looks set to continue into a fourth decade, with funeral trade associations doing their best to assure both the public and government that the best thing they can do is choose a member firm, as these are required to abide by a code of practice. (Which includes compliance with the law). Although the law doesn’t seem to be being enforced.
It’s all very circular – as we wrote in our blog post a couple of weeks ago.
We’ll leave the last word on this matter to the late Professor Woodroffe, quoted in The Telegraph on 6th November 2002:
“Ombudsmen are impartial. How on earth can anyone expect regulation processes set up by trade bodies to be impartial and fair? People are extremely vulnerable when they are arranging funerals for relatives or partners. Independent regulation is vital.”
