The charity in my hon. Friend’s constituency, Winston’s Wish, was referred to earlier by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), and we take its concerns seriously. I stress that what we have put in place is a structure of reform that will involve us actually spending slightly more over the coming years on support for bereaved families, but there is a debate to be had about how long support should last. For various reasons, going beyond a year raises difficult issues. For example, a short-term benefit can be disregarded for
universal credit, whereas a long-term income replacement benefit almost certainly would not be. By delivering the money in this way, therefore, the lump sum is tax-free and the short-term payment is not counted against people’s universal credit, whereas a long-term payment would be, meaning that bereaved families might end up getting less support were we to extend the period. So there are trade-offs and reasons why these balances have been struck.