Treasury ‘tried to block May’s plan to pay for child funerals’
THE Chancellor tried to block a new scheme backed by Theresa May to pay for child burials, it was claimed last night.
The clash with Philip Hammond emerged amid persistent reports of a feud between them.
They are said to have disagreed over the Prime Minister’s bid to rush through a series of ‘ legacy’ social reforms before she leaves No 10.
The launch of the Government’s Children’s Funeral Fund has been timed for July 23, the day before Mrs May steps down. But wellplaced sources disclosed that Mr Hammond initially tried to block the £10million-a-year scheme.
The Prime Minister over-ruled him – and then faced objections from Justice Secretary David Gauke, whose department was asked to foot the bill. A senior Government source said: ‘The Treasury kept trying to stop the scheme in a pennypinching way.
‘Then after the Prime Minister stepped in to force it through, the Ministry of Justice kept dragging its feet. If No 10 had not banged heads together it would have never been up and running before the Prime Minister leaves.’
Mrs May and Mr Hammond have been locked in a row for weeks over her demands for more cash for last-minute spending pledges.
Earlier this week the Chancellor reportedly mocked her request for £27billion to boost schools. He is said to have joked privately that they ‘might get 27p’.
The campaign for a Children’s Funeral Fund was led ents meet funeral costs. She praised Mrs May ‘from the bottom of my heart’ for supporting her scheme, which she said would bring comfort to people in their ‘darkest hour’.
She has previously described how she was forced to take out a loan to fund her son’s funeral while struggling to with her grief. Mrs May hailed Mrs Harris’s ‘dignity and strength’ as she announced details of the fund, which will waive the costs of burials and cremations for the families of some 4,300 children who die each year in England.
The Prime Minister said: ‘No parent should ever have to endure the unbearable loss of a child – a loss that no amount of time will ever truly heal.
‘In the raw pain of immediate loss, it cannot be right that grieving parents should have to worry about how to meet the funeral costs for a child they hoped to see grow.’
Signs of the tension between Mrs May and Mr Hammond emerged in her interview with the Daily Mail this week.
She declined to comment on reports of a rift but indicated pointedly that her full title of ‘Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury’ meant she outranked him when deciding who controls public finances.
Asked if Mr Hammond had ‘cut up rough in the last few weeks’, Mrs May chose her words carefully: ‘ There are always discussions between prime ministers and chancellors. We both have responsibility for public finances.’
The fund applies for children who die under the age of 18. Parents will still have to pay for additional, optional services and elements such as flowers and receptions.
A source close to the Chancellor said: ‘ The Treasury signed off the policy the very same day we received a letter. Any suggestion that we blocked the policy is untrue.’