Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of issuing national guidance to smaller burial authorities on recovering costs associated with the (a) removal and (b) regularisation of unauthorised gravestones and memorials.

Whilst the Ministry of Justice is responsible for burial law and policy, the day-to-day operational oversight of burial provision is managed locally. Accordingly, decisions on management and administration in individual cases are matters for the relevant burial authority in accordance with the appropriate legal framework and any local regulations or terms and conditions of service.

The Government’s Guide for burial ground managers (8430_Burial Ground Managers) is intended to support the provision of best practice in all burial grounds. Paragraph 3.23 provides guidance on mitigating issues arising from informal memorialisation; and paragraph 2.26 outlines the statutory powers available to local authority burial providers to recover the costs of removing unauthorised memorials.