Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will have discussions with the organisers of the Letters to Heaven project launched in Derry and Strabane cemeteries on the potential merits of expanding that project (a) nationally and (b) in Romford constituency.

The Government is responsible for law and policy relating to burial in England and Wales only. It does not have day-to-day operational responsibility for burial grounds, which is matter for local authority and private burial authorities.

I understand this initiative has been implemented in Derry and Strabane by the local authority and has previously been taken up in other parts of the UK. It would be a matter for individual burial authorities to decide whether they wish to implement the scheme.