[Cherie]

It was previously paid until the child reached 16 or when 20 (if still in education)

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...-a7622191.html

Among*the headlines around Philip Hammond’s first Budget, a poorly considered policy coming into force within weeks has gone almost entirely ignored. The cut to bereavement benefit, a payout that*supports families when one parent suddenly dies, is both cruel and needless – and goes against Theresa May’s stated objective of protecting Britain’s soft human underbelly.
The new bereavement benefit rules, which take effect from 6 April, significantly reduce the length of time that bereavement support is paid, from until the youngest child is 16 years old to just 18 months after the death of the parent. The Government has also refused to extend entitlement to the benefit to couples who were not married but who had children together, thus missing an opportunity to modernise the benefit and make it fit for today’s society.
In March last year, the Work and Pensions Select Committee, which I chair, published a report on support for the bereaved. In our report, we said that the financial impact of bereavement can – and often will – last much longer than one year (the shorter payment period initially proposed by DWP). We were deeply concerned that the payment would stop on the anniversary of the death, exacerbating the challenges of an already very difficult time for bereaved people. So we asked the department to lengthen the payment to, at the very least, 18 months and recommended it consider extending the monthly payments further. We also said that cohabiting couples with children should be eligible for the benefit. The needs of bereaved children of cohabiting parents are no different to those whose parents were married or in a civil partnership. We said that penalising children on the grounds of the marital status of their parents was unjust. Recent court cases show the judiciary agrees.