The Yorkshire widows fighting to change bereavement payments for parents

A campaign group, called Widows’ Fight, which was started in West Yorkshire, is leading efforts to reform Bereavement Support Payments and wants to take the issue to parliament.

Prior to 2017, bereaved families were entitled to financial support from the government known as Widowed Parents’ Allowance (WPA). This assisted parents until they were no longer eligible for Child Benefit – generally when their youngest child turned 18.

But a new system was introduced in 2017 which saw WPA abolished. It was replaced by Bereavement Support Payments (BSP) which are only paid for the first 18 months after a parent has lost their partner.

For a person to be entitled to the funds, their deceased partner must have contributed a certain amount of National Insurance, or died because of an accident at work or disease caused by work.

BSP has two rates which are dependent on a person’s circumstances and have not increased since its introduction almost 10 years ago. One sees recipients entitled to a one-off payment of £3,500, followed by 18 £350 payments, the other includes an initial £2,500 payment, followed by 18 £100 payments.

Parents who lose their partner do not automatically receive the money – they have to apply for it within three months of their partner’s death. This is just one point of concern for nationwide campaign group, Widows’ Fight, which says that many families are missing out and are simply unaware of the scheme due to a lack of advertising.

Campaigners ultimately want to see BSP reverted back to the previous model.

Halifax mum, Caroline Booth, who is spearheading the campaign, has already shared her experience of losing her husband Steve to cancer in May 2025, just months after learning he was terminally ill.

Steve worked until the day before he died, paying National Insurance for almost 35 years as a higher-rate taxpayer, yet Caroline calculates that in the final eight months of his life alone, he paid more in National Insurance than she will ever receive in bereavement support.

She said: “This isn’t about me – it’s about fairness. Our partners paid in for decades believing their families would be protected. That promise was broken. Grief doesn’t end at 18 months, children’s needs don’t end at 18 months either.”

Now, fellow campaigner Holly O’Connor (41) from Huddersfield, who is mum to eight-year-old April, has told her story and hopes to raise awareness of the struggles that widows and their families face. Holly lost her husband Andy to an aggressive form of skin cancer in December 2022 when he was just 43.

She said: “…I quite literally would not wish this on my worst enemy. It’s horrendous to watch the person that you think you’re going to live out your days with, die in front of you and have to explain that to your kid, who at five years old shouldn’t know what death is, and to then have to manage parenting and running a home and working and all the admin and everything else that comes with day to day life – having to manage that on your own is so hard. It’s just awful.”

Holly explained that April has suffered from “severe separation anxiety” after her dad passed away, fearing that something would happen to Holly. She spoke highly of the work of charities including Child Bereavement UK and Winston’s Wish, as well as Widowed and Young.

She also praised her employer Kirklees Council, where she works part-time, and councillors John Lawson (Lib Dems, Cleckheaton), Kath Pinnock (Lib Dems, Cleckheaton) and Andrew Cooper (Greens, Newsome) for showing their support to the campaign.

Holly continued: “As a parent, to be in that situation, where you know that it is not the best thing for your child to be going to other people – being put into after school clubs, being shoved from pillar to post just so I can work – to know that isn’t the best thing for her but to be in a financial position where really I could do with that extra money is just soul destroying because I’m so torn between providing a better future for our daughter and doing what she needs emotionally right now.

“And I am by no means the worst case scenario here financially – I’m not going to be made homeless or anything – but there are people who are involved in our campaign who claim Universal Credit, who didn’t have life insurance, who didn’t own their own homes so are still paying rent, [who] have had horrendous situations to deal with.

“Some of our widows have been widowed by suicide and really traumatic circumstances and their kids are really struggling and they’re in similar situations to me where they’re going – ‘well, what do I do? Am I there for my kid or do I work?’

“These are the sorts of decisions that as parents we’re having to make and if BSPs were extended, it would take some of that burden away, it would give us the opportunity to be able to be at home or to pay for counselling and therapy for our kids where it’s not available from the NHS and other charities.

“There are a lot of people that are stuck between a rock and a hard place really in these circumstances.”

Widows’ Fight has launched a petition for the cause which has accumulated over 33,000 signatures. The group hopes that 100,000 signatures can be secured which will prompt a Parliamentary debate.

It is also holding a peaceful protest in Parliament Square in Westminster on Saturday, June 6 from 11am, with everyone welcome to attend.

Holly added: “Really it’s showing the government that we have public backing for what we’re trying to do and what we want to change and it’s really trying to get people to understand that we’re not just asking for handouts, we’re asking for what our partners paid into the system.”

The government provided a response in February which reads in part: “The petition asks the government to extend BSP beyond 18 months for all families, and to uprate its value annually in line with the cost of living. BSP is not intended as an ongoing income‑replacement benefit, nor is it designed to match the duration of a family’s grief.

"The 18‑month duration reflects the policy intent to provide support during the acute period following a bereavement, when people may face sudden costs or short‑term disruption.

“Longer‑term financial support is instead available through income‑replacement benefits such as Universal Credit, which are usually uprated annually in line with inflation and designed to provide continuing support with everyday living costs.”