To ask Her Majesty's Government what forecast has been made of the cost of introducing short death certificates, as proposed in the 2002 report Civil Registration, Vital Change. [HL5583]

A high level forecast of the cost of introducing short death certificates indicates costs in the order of £130,000. Broadly these costs would cover changes to the software used by registrars in England and Wales and provision of an additional supply of serially numbered secure stationery.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what information technology changes would be required to facilitate the introduction of short death certificates. [HL5584]

The software used by registrars would need to be amended to extract relevant information from the record of a death to be printed on a certificate form.