Graveyards and Burial Grounds

I was coming to that suggestion. My hon. Friend anticipates me in a positive way. The guidance will bring to an end the distressing sights of row upon row of uprooted or pushed-over gravestones, or those ranks of ugly metal stakes. I hope that it will also reduce the number of graves that are disfigured by the hazard tape and insensitive warning signs. In most cases, there is no need for action, for special equipment or for contracting in expert advice. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson) gave a good example. She ran a campaign, calling on her own local authority to use in-house expertise. The authority now trains its own people to deal with the matter sensitively. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw made an important point about gravestones that have already been staked or laid down. Obviously, the action that will be taken will depend on specific circumstances. However, we have made it clear, and it is now on the record, that the guidance is about to be published. Any local authority worth its salt will now start preparing to incorporate that guidance. There is nothing to stop them behaving as if the guidance is already in place. I hope that the authorities will be contacting the burial ground owners to agree on how to proceed. I expect burial ground providers to review the decisions they have taken in all of the relevant sites in the light of the guidance. Where there is no good reason for a gravestone to be staked or laid down, I urge the council to restore the monument to its previous position. The council may follow the example that was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen and pay the cost of so doing. That will mean removing the stake or re-erecting the headstone, as appropriate, at a cost to the authority rather than to the individual bereaved families. As my hon. Friend said, any death or serious injury in our cemeteries caused by an avoidable risk is a tragedy. Sadly, some of those deaths have been of children. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that those incidents are extremely rare. By contrast the number of families who have been distressed by the precipitate action of authorities to make gravestones purportedly ““safe”” is very large—859 in the constituency of Bassetlaw alone. If that was reflected across the country, we would see many thousands of families being distressed by this clumsy way of dealing with what is an incredibly low risk. Our cemeteries can be beautiful places for contemplation, but they are also a working environment. I say to my hon. Friend, I hope that this Christmas, families can visit the graves of their loved ones—in his constituency and elsewhere—knowing that the memorials will remain in place in respect of their memories.