England, Wales and Northern Ireland have no dedicated regulatory regime governing funeral directors, leaving an industry that handles the dead and manages the grief of the living to operate largely on trust. The only statutory oversight touches pre-paid funeral plans, which fall under the Financial Conduct Authority. Everything else - how bodies are stored, transported and cared for, and what funeral directors can charge - sits outside any binding legal framework.
Voluntary Standards, No Legal Teeth
Two industry bodies, the National Association of Funeral Directors and the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors, publish codes of practice and monitor quality among their members. Membership, however, is optional, and the codes carry no statutory force. A funeral director who ignores every standard these organisations promote commits no offence by doing so. General laws on health and safety, competition and consumer protection still apply, but none of these frameworks was designed with the particular sensitivities of handling human remains in mind.
Warnings From Regulators and a Criminal Case in Hull
The Competition and Markets Authority flagged the gap in 2020, recommending an inspection and registration body to monitor how funeral directors transport and care for the deceased, alongside measures to make pricing clearer for grieving families. The case for reform sharpened in 2024, when a Humberside Police investigation into Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull led to 64 charges against funeral director Robert Bush, including 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial.
The independent inquiry examining the David Fuller case went further still, describing the funeral sector as "an unregulated free for all" and urging the government to establish an independent statutory regulatory scheme for England "as a matter of urgency" - a recommendation repeated in both its interim and final phase 2 reports.
Political Response: From Caution to Promised Action
The previous Conservative government initially resisted wholescale regulation, arguing a co-regulatory model combining government and industry input on standards would be more proportionate. It did, however, plan a call for evidence following the Hull case before the 2024 general election intervened. The incoming Labour government signalled in late 2024 and early 2025 that it was weighing "some form" of regulation, while stressing any changes must remain proportionate. By autumn 2025 the work had become cross-departmental, and in March 2026 the Ministry of Justice confirmed it was examining how to strengthen criminal law relating to the deceased, including possible new offences. Following Bush's sentencing on 31 July 2026, the government pledged "urgent plans to crack down on rogue operators" in response to what it called a "harrowing" case.
Scotland's Head Start
Scotland offers a working template. Concerns over infant cremation practices triggered two inquiries - the Infant Cremation Commission in 2014 and the National Cremation Investigation in 2016 - both pointing toward the need for statutory oversight. The Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 followed, creating a framework for inspecting funeral premises, a code of practice and a licensing scheme for funeral directors, alongside regulation of burial and cremation authorities.
- Inspection and enforcement regulations, consulted on in 2017 and 2023, were approved in January 2025 and took effect on 1 March 2025.
- A code of practice setting minimum industry standards, approved in January 2024, also came into force on 1 March 2025.
- A searchable Funeral Sector Register covering all active industry entities launched on 1 April 2025.
- A licensing scheme for funeral directors remains under development.
The divergence between Scotland's phased but concrete statutory system and the continued absence of equivalent rules south of the border has become harder to defend politically, particularly as high-profile failures expose how little recourse families have when something goes badly wrong.