Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many families are in receipt of the new bereavement support payment.

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. However the Department does monitor requests we receive for new statistics and consider whether we can produce and release analysis that will helpfully inform public debate. The Department is therefore looking at this issue with a view to seeing what statistics could be produced on a regular basis.