New funerary methods including alkaline hydrolysis and human composting could be considered in England and Wales following the publication of the Law Commission’s final report on burial, cremation and new funerary methods.
The report follows the publication of the Law Commission’s burials and cremations report in March, which included proposals for graves to be reused and closed burial sites to be reopened.
New funerary methods final report and draft bills details the options available for dealing with the bodies of deceased people beyond traditional burial, burial at sea and cremation, which are currently governed by a “patchwork of legislation”, some dating back to the 19th century.
The report notes that although there is no express prohibition of alternative methods in law, legislation relating to death registration may have a prohibiting effect.
The objective of the Law Commission’s project – which sits within a wider review of burial, cremation and funerary methods – is not to identify new funerary methods, but to enable future regulation.
“Our intention is that the legislative framework to enable the future regulation of individual new funerary methods will contain safeguards and also allow further safeguards to be put in place in future, with the aim of ensuring that these methods are carried out appropriately,” the Law Commission explains in the introduction to the report.
“It will enable individual providers of new funerary methods to operate securely and conscientiously and to offer a greater choice of funerary methods to members of the public.”
The recommendations include new primary legislation for the regulation of new or modern funerary methods, which would include death registration that records the method used.
The report does not include recommendations about the regulation of any specific new funerary method, which the Law Commission says will be a matter for the secretary of state and the Welsh ministers to decide. It does, however, recommend implementing powers for the secretary of state and Welsh ministers to make regulations approving the use of individual new funerary methods and setting out how they should be carried out, and power to make regulations enabling trials of new funerary methods to be authorised.
Recommendations include a requirement for the regulation-maker to have regard to the importance of three principles: treating humans with dignity, protecting the environment, and protecting public health and public safety.
A new criminal offence of carrying out a new funerary method that has not been regulated under the power, other than in accordance with authorisation given for a trial, should be introduced to clarify the law in this area, with a power to create new offences in secondary legislation of carrying out regulated new funerary methods in contravention of legislation.
Further requirements for the use of a new funerary method on the body of a deceased person to be registered and details of how and by whom this registration must be carried out are recommended, along with a requirement to include in regulations provision about the inspection of facilities.
Amendments are recommended to primary legislation governing death registration so that the requirements are broadly the same for a regulated new funerary method, and for new funerary methods carried out in an authorised trial, as for burial and cremation.
The governments of England and Wales should now consider the recommendations for reform along with the respective draft bills, the Law Commission said.
