Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications have been made to the Government Funeral Payment scheme since May 2010; and how many such applications have been rejected.

From the latest data available, 280,780 applications have been made for Funeral Payments in Great Britain between May 2010 and September 2014. In the same period there have been 139,560 refusals.

Notes

1. These figures do not include applications which were processed clerically and have not yet been entered on to the Social Fund Computer System.

2. The figures given are the number of applications and initial refusals in the given time period and not the number of people who made applications or received awards. An individual may make more than one application in a year. Information on the number of people who made applications and received awards is not available.

3. The refusal figures given are based on the initial decisions made on each case and may include cases where an award was later made on review.

4. All figures are rounded to the nearest 10.