Scottish COVID-19 inquiry|2 May 2025

Shocking revelations from those working in the funeral industry.

Introduction

Giving evidence is the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities (FBCA). The Federation is the UK’s principal representative of burial and cremation authorities, providing a range of services to support its members care for over 400,000 funerals a year. FBCA provide services to the owners and operators of cemeteries and crematoria across the whole of the UK.

Witnesses:

• Jane Matheson, Bereavement Services Manager, Edinburgh Council.

• Jennifer Hamilton, Crematorium Manager, Clyde Coast and Garnock Valley.

• Mike Birkinshaw, Chief Executive FBCA.

• Katrina Hartnett, Bereavement Services Team Leader, Perth and Kinross Council.

The sole statment is submitted by Mike Birkinshaw on behalf of the FBCA.

NB: Many points were NOT covered during oral evidence.

‘‘Income for businesses involved in burials and cremations did not increase as obviously as might be expected during the pandemic.’’

-Paragraph 112 of statement

‘‘I think the impact of people not being able to attend their loved one's funerals and cremations will have a long-term social impact.’’

-Paragraph 153

‘‘I believe that whilst those restrictions were at one point, necessary, appropriate and proportionate, we have created a mental and physical health problem as a result because of those wider family members who were not allowed to attend funerals and cremations.’’

-Paragraph 154

Testimony highlights

• Pre-pandemic planning.

• ‘COVID pandemic’ first seen on the news from Italy.

• Isolation rules for staff caused operational problems.

• ‘COVID cases’ almost non existent amongst staff.

• Funeral services not overwhelmed.

‘‘Watching the different news channels you could just see it coming over from Italy.’’

-Katrina Hartnett

‘‘We were a year in before we had even one case of COVID.’’

-Jane Matheson

‘‘None of us contracted COVID during the pandemic.’’

-Jennifer Hamilton

‘‘On the main, the (cremation) service coped reasonably well right across Scotland.’’

-Mike Birkinshaw

Public compliance with ‘COVID’ authoritarianism

I found this evidence disturbing beyond belief and some of the most shocking from the inquiry to date but glad resistance to this evil was taking place.

• Police should have enforced funeral restrictions on public not staff. All witnesses supported stricter enforcement of funeral restrictions to protect staff.

• Pipers were not allowed to play.

• Embracing after funerals in the open air and having a funeral tea seen as ‘incredulous’ and an ‘illegal gathering’ that police should have dealt with.

‘‘There were many people trying to find ways to circumvent or just completely disregard the restrictions…people just didn’t want to comply.’’

-Mike Birkinshaw

‘‘There were exemptions for people who couldn’t wear masks and people could get a lanyard and when masks became mandatory the amount of people who just flouted the rules and purchased lanyards.’’

-Katrina Hartnett

‘‘Enforcing those restrictions was incredibly difficult. Alot of them were villified on social media for it.’’

‘‘We had a service with a piper and you were were’nt allowed wind instruments in the crematoria and he just waited till the service started and said ‘‘you will not tell me i will not pipe at this funeral’’ and came in and piped at the funeral and people clapped.’’

-Jane Matheson

‘‘It was difficult to police the public. I remember on one occasion after the funeral service was finished…they left without shaking hands, as they were asked to do and they all went to the car park where they started to immediately embrace one another.’’

‘‘We were naturally quite incredulous at this.’’

-Jennifer Hamilton

Cremation stats (all council and private)

The most recent year for which data is available (2023) shows record levels of cremations exceeding those of the peak ‘pandemic’ years. This only confirms the disastrous lockdown response has been responsble for large numbers of excess deaths and where the is evidence ‘COVID vaccines’ have saved lives?

Deaths ‘involving COVID-19’

Despite crematoria staff being around ‘illegal gatherings’ of hundreds and mask wearing disregarded by the public… aswell as almost no ‘COVID cases’ in 3 years there was just 1 death recorded during the entire ‘pandemic’ period within the industry!

Statement highlights

‘‘At the time, this planning was aimed at a respiratory illness and had already been in progress for many years.’’

-Paragraph 43

‘‘The 2012 requirement on crematoria meant that there was additional discussion around the quality of pandemic planning by local authorities and the Scottish Government, and how that planning fitted with what would happen for crematoria if a respiratory pandemic came about.’’

-Paragraph 44

‘‘The early work assumed that we could create a process to get to the end point of that 16-week ebb and flow, but what we learnt in the COVID pandemic, is that there was not an end point.’’

-Paragraph 51

‘‘Staff communicated that their stress levels increased because they had to enforce the rules.’’

-Paragraph 85

‘‘Crematorium staff had to become a pseudo authoritarian figure and whilst most of the discontent was not particularly rude or aggressive, staff members were confronted and felt intimidated.’’

-Paragraph 86

‘‘There was a consequence in those early days that crematoria were calling the police, to inform them that they had an illegal mass gathering, which was out of their control. The police would then decline to attend as they did not feel it was appropriate to break up a large funeral.’’

-Paragraph 89

‘‘A lot of the federation's pre-pandemic planning considerations, from around February 2020, were based on numbers of deaths, which may have meant 30 crematoria running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, or alternatively, working on a model where it may have taken up to two years to be able to process ordinary deaths, plus excess deaths.’’

-Paragraph 100

‘The reality was that we had some additional working and some unusual working conditions, but we did not get anywhere near the numbers some of our modelling was based around.’’

-Paragraph 101

‘‘The number of cremations, for example, in 2020 to 2021, and 2021 to 2022, remained reasonably static, with burials being the same.’’

-Paragraph 113 of statement

‘‘The pre-pandemic planning within our profession was organised around short-term spikes in death, not long-term residual deaths, and that must change.’’

-Paragraph 151

‘‘Initially, the pre-pandemic planning proposals were that the systems only had to endure a wave of deaths, before modelling predicted deaths would fall again, but we saw that this was not the case in the COVID pandemic. We must find a mechanism that allows for long term sustained high level deaths, which allows us to plan better.’’

-Paragraph 152

‘‘In mid-2021, when the restrictions were lifting and life was returning to a state of normality, the federation saw a spike in memorial events, and the burial of cremated remains..’’

-Paragraph 155

‘‘That basic requirement to grieve was impacted by government decisions.’’

‘‘The federation talks a lot about that long term impact on our service users.’’

-Paragraphs 159-160

Additional info

This concludes the worship and life events impact hearings.

The inquiry returns 10th June with the Equalities and Human Rights impact hearings and will run for 2 weeks which should make for interesting viewing.

NB: A direction was issued by Lord Brailsford that closing statements for Justice, Worship and Life Events and Equalities and Human Rights will be voluntary and by written submission only. Perhaps due to what was evidenced in Health and Social Care closing remarks where nearly 12 months on has remained unreported by both global mainstream and ‘alternative’ media.

Thanks for reading.

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