:quality(80)/cdn-kiosk-api.telegraaf.nl/6b38e2da-2f19-11eb-afba-0217670beecd.png "Former State Secretary Menno Snel appears before political interrogation committee | Inland")
Follow the messages from political reporter Leon Brandsema at the bottom of this article.
Van Ark, now Minister for Medical Care, regrets what happened. She said this in the Lower House on Wednesday morning during her interrogation about the benefits affair. In it, tens of thousands of parents were duped by their own government. One of the causes: in the event of a minor mistake, parents must immediately repay large amounts in benefits.
But according to Van Ark, she will not receive any of this when she took office at the start of the Rutte III cabinet in October 2017. “I would have liked to know about that, that could have prevented a lot of suffering from parents,” she says on Wednesday morning. Until last summer, Van Ark was, as State Secretary of Social Affairs, responsible for policy and legislation regarding childcare (surcharge).
Minister Tamara van Ark (Medical Care) during an earlier meeting in the Lower House.
Ⓒ Dutch Height / ANP
—
During his interrogation on Wednesday afternoon, Snel also indicated that he was not informed about the problem when he took office. With regard to childcare allowance, his handover concerned only the plan that the previous cabinet already had to replace the allowance with direct financing for childcare. In the first instance, Snel also had ‘not so much’ consultations with his top civil servants about the childcare allowance. “Because there seemed no reason to. Later that changed. ”
Snel resigned at the end of last year because of the benefits affair. The committee will also want to know what Van Snel knew about the tax authorities ‘fraud hunt and the use of citizens’ second nationality in doing so.
In de podcast Matter of Cents Herman Stam and parliamentary reporter Leon Brandsema discuss what came to light in the benefits affair after the first interview:
Van Ark explains how when she took office she was already confronted with the problems about people with large debts, and that these are also caused by substantial refunds of benefits. The VVD minister also regularly talks about it with her top civil servants. These conversations concern causes such as the advance payment system or the late determination of someone’s income around the benefits. But not about the all-or-nothing approach. Van Ark: “I missed the first exit.”
An attempt by the Ministry of Finance to compensate a first group of duped parents last summer, then failed. Also because officials from the Ministry of Social Affairs are concerned about setting precedents and who pays the bill. The ministry has put a lot of pressure on this, the committee wants to know. “Not that I know,” she says in her interrogation. She herself says she did not do it.
–
