Chamber-advisor integrity hardly accessible: ‘Suffer from a faltering mail account’ | Inland

This is apparent from the annual report of the advisor, former registrar Jacqueline Biesheuvel-Vermeijden. It doesn’t appear to be a storm for her. After two years, it has not even come to an acquaintance with all the groups. The advisor spoke with one faction in 2020, before all appointments were canceled due to the corona virus. The thread was never picked up again after that. “Unfortunately, because of the corona measures, the intention to get acquainted with the political groups, at least after the elections to the House of Representatives in March 2021, did not materialize this year,” Biesheuvel-Vermeijden reports.

In 2020, at the request of GL, the advisor did consider the issue surrounding then MP Isabella Diks. She had given up living in Leeuwarden, where she had a city palace in the center. In practice, however, it turned out that she mainly resided in The Hague. After advice from the advisor, she refunded part of the travel allowance received.

Biesheuvel-Vermeijden was appointed in 2020 as the point of contact for MPs who had questions about integrity matters, after several MPs had been discredited due to violation of rules regarding redundancy pay and travel costs. She cannot take harsh measures, but MPs can ask her for advice and she can make recommendations about integrity rules.

Last year, however, little ended up on Biesheuvel-Vermeijden’s plate. The adviser also spoke only once with the new Speaker of the House Vera Bergkamp, ​​just after the D66 member took office almost a year ago.

Accessibility

The limited number of calls may be because her accessibility was not exactly in order. The adviser states in her report that MPs were unable to reach her by email. The technical problems kept increasing, access to her account via her own telephone and tablet was eventually even blocked. “That’s why I decided to cancel the entire account.” Since then she has been available through a clerk, who was also replaced halfway through the year. Contacts with them are ‘sporadic but good’.

Through the Kamerbode, the internal magazine of the House of Representatives, MPs are sometimes informed about who they should contact for questions about integrity: “In this way, the members are somewhat informed.”

All in all, last year the adviser did not get any further than ‘telephone contact with some (new) MPs’. Among other things, they want to know about their continued payment after the end of their membership of parliament, have general questions about integrity or report a ‘possible conflict of interest’ between the portfolio of a Member of Parliament and the business interests of their partner or relations at a ministry.

The consultant, who is not paid for her work, does not have any recommendations after working for a year. She only recommends that more information about registers, in which MPs can report their ancillary positions, gifts and travel, is ‘not a superfluous luxury’.

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