Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of enabling the electronic submission of life certificates from UK pensioners overseas during the covid-19 outbreak.

During the Emergency period DWP has suspended the issue of Life Certificates to customers living abroad, recognising the difficulties securing independent verification would present while Foreign Countries experience different phases of Lock Down. The situation is under regular review and the process will be reintroduced at an appropriate point. In the meantime, verification clearance has been undertaken by telephone for those who have already received Life Certificates, ensuring our customer service standards are not compromised. We continue to explore alternative means of International verification and have recently introduced arrangements with USA to align to their death registration process removing the future requirement for dispatching Life Certificates to customers living in the USA.