Confidence in the House of Representatives in the Netherlands decreased last year, reports the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). In the preceding years, there was a steady increase in confidence.
In other institutions, such as judges, the police and the army, trust increased or remained the same in 2021, according to the study Social cohesion and well-being, which has been conducted since 2012 among more than 75,000 people aged 15 or older.
House of Representatives
Confidence in the House of Representatives has increased the most in recent years of all institutions. Between 2012 and 2016, an average of about 35 percent of the Dutch had confidence in this institute. This rose to 41 percent between 2017 and 2019 and even reached 53 percent in 2020. Last year, however, that dropped back to 42 percent. Trust in the ‘politicians’ category shows a similar pattern, according to the CBS researchers.
Last year, research by the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau (SCP) already showed that confidence in politics was declining due to the difficult formation and the political aftermath of the allowance affair.