Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications for Bereavement Support Payments have been denied because the surviving partner was not married or in a civil partnership with the deceased partner, since 2018.

Monthly official statistics for Bereavement Support Payment, including number of decisions disallowed due to not married/ civil partnership and no proof of marriage/civil partnership, between April 2017 and March 2022, are published and can be found at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html