Banning close relatives from funerals during lockdown was wrong, admits Matt Hancock

The Government was wrong to impose strict rules on banning people from going to the funerals of family members, the Health Secretary has admitted.

Grieving relatives were left heartbroken at the height of the pandemic when they were banned from burying family members because of the need to maintain social distancing.

In a webchat discussion, members of the women’s club AllBright yesterday Matt Hancock said the guidance was a mistake and regretted that it had been “really strongly interpreted”.

He said: “We put out social distancing guidance, which was really strongly interpreted, and it meant that in the peak of the pandemic, lots of people didn’t go to the funeral even of someone they’ve been married to for 50 years.

“And there was a little boy from south London who was buried without his parents there, and that really affected me. So we realised we’d made a mistake and we changed the guidance.”

Under the guidance, immediate family members were allowed to attend funerals so long as the services took place within strict social distancing guidelines and with a limit on numbers of people attending.

However, funeral directors accused councils of misinterpreting lockdown rules by banning family members from crematoria and graveyards and going “way beyond” their legal powers.

Ministers then had to intervene by writing to councils to instruct them to work with faith groups and funeral directors to forge “safe, sensitive and innovative ways for funerals to take place”.