Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will introduce a bereavement support bubble policy to enable grieving households to form a support bubble with one other household in the case of further local or national lockdowns during the covid-19 outbreak.

From Monday 14 September, when meeting friends and family you do not live with (or have formed a support bubble with) you must not meet in a group of more than six, indoors or outdoors. This is against the law and the police will have the powers to enforce these legal limits, including to issue fines (fixed penalty notices) of £100, doubling for further breaches up to a maximum of £3,200.

In England, a support bubble is a close support network between a household of any size and a single adult household. Support bubbles are to assist the loneliest and most isolated in society. It is to provide extra support to some of those most impacted by the most difficult effects of the current social restrictions, while ensuring we continue to keep the rate of transmission low.