Two bereaved families filed a case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Wednesday, claiming that the UK government’s bereavement support policy is discriminatory.
Leigh Day, the law firm representing the families, said the government’s cut-off date for Bereavement Support Payment (BSP) eligibility is “arbitrary” and discriminates against unmarried, cohabitating partners and their children.
Jyotee Gunnooa has been raising a three-year-old son after her partner died in 2016. Andrew Byles has faced a stressful financial situation after his partner died of cancer in 2017. Under the Widowed Parents’ Allowance (WPA), which has now been replaced with BSP, both families were denied allowance as they were not married to their partners before death.
Although BSP now abolishes the requirement that individuals must have been married to their deceased partners and allows them to claim some backdated payments, the excluded period between October 2016 and August 2018 left Gunnooa and Byles with losses of £16,000 and £14,000, respectively.
Despite this policy change, Gunnooa stated that “[t]his money would have helped us navigate the financial challenges after my partner’s death.” Similarly, recalling his financial difficulties of raising his child after his partner’s death, Byles called out the current law as “an outdated, unfair law.” He said: “Every penny counts in this fight for justice, not just for my family, but for thousands of others who have been let down by the system.”
Furthermore, the families’ human rights lawyer Sarah Crowe stated:
The current system unjustly penalizes bereaved families at their most vulnerable, simply because of arbitrary distinctions such as marital status or the date of a partner’s death. This is not only deeply unfair but also discriminatory. The law must recognize the reality of modern families and ensure that all bereaved children and their surviving parents are treated equally. Jyotee and Andrew’s courageous fight is a step toward achieving justice for thousands who have been denied the support they deserve.
After the UK Supreme Court’s decision in the Siobhan McLaughlin Judicial Review case in 2018, WPA was replaced with BSP. The case found that the eligibility criteria to allow widowed parents to claim WPA only if they were the spouse or civil partner of the deceased was contrary to Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The decision led to the extension of the eligibility criteria to unmarried, cohabiting parents. This extension also included allowing some backdated payment claims, but it still leaves out the gap period between October 2016 and August 2018.
