Burial law would have helped King Richard III's dying wishes, says MP

David Burrowes said the burial wishes of the dead should be binding so they are not “thwarted”. He is proposing a Burial Rights Reform Bill which would enshrine the need to ensure a person is laid to rest where they want to be.

The proposal comes two and a half years after descendants of Richard III lost their court battle to have his battle-scarred bones - found under a council car park in Leicester - re-interred in York Minster. Members of the Plantagenet Alliance had claimed it had been the wish of the monarch, also known as Richard of York, to be laid to rest in the church in York.

But they lost their battle and Richard III was buried in Leicester Cathedral. Outlining his Bill, Mr Burrowes, the Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate, said: “The most high profile case stemmed from the discovery of Richard III’s remains in 2012, a lengthy court battle ensued with the descendants of the notorious king pitted against the less notorious then lord chancellor. Their attempts to have their ancestor laid to rest in York Minster, where he is alleged to have made plans to have been buried some 550 years ago, was unsuccessful.

“The High Court chose to keep this body in Leicester, where his remains were found, due to a lack of clearly expressed burial wishes.”

The MP was moved to propose the Bill after a family who lives in his constituency found they could not scatter their mother’s ashes over her late husband’s grave because an estranged relative had sole control over the burial plot.

Up and down the country “traumatic disputes” are erupting because “relatives are unable to fulfil the wishes of a departed loved one”, MPs heard. MPs decided the Bill should be given leave to be debated, and it is scheduled to return to the Commons for a second reading on March 24.