It soon became clear to Lodewijk Asscher that the “heavy” fraud law he had inherited as the newly appointed Minister of Social Affairs turned out “badly”. But in the House of Representatives he initially sounded quite mild about it. “The cabinet did not think so yet. You must speak with one voice. In your mind you are sometimes already further along than you can say as a minister,” Asscher said on Monday in his interrogation by the parliamentary inquiry committee on Fraud Policy and Services.
Asscher was in a complicated position as a minister in the VVD-PvdA cabinet of Rutte II, he outlined during his interrogation. His own PvdA had voted against the strict law of his predecessor Henk Kamp (VVD) in 2012, when it was adopted by a broad majority in the House of Representatives. This included high fines for entering incorrect information when applying for benefits. For example, the wrongfully obtained money had to be repaid plus the same amount as a fine.
All room to take individual cases into account was restricted
Louis Asscher ex-minister
The fraud law remained untouched in the coalition agreement between VVD and PvdA. So Asscher had to make do with it. “As a minister you are obliged to implement legislation as it is. You cannot say: we are kicking this law aside.” The VVD also saw the law “as a great achievement,” according to Asscher. An adjustment would immediately encounter objections from the coalition partner.
Initially, after being reassured by his officials, Asscher thought that the law was not intended to punish people who had made a mistake when applying for benefits. Implementers such as the UWV benefit agency could “take into account people who unintentionally violated the law,” he reassured concerned members of Parliament immediately after taking office. But later it turned out that there was no such space at all. People who unintentionally made a mistake received high fines. And implementing agencies that wanted something different were not allowed to do so. Asscher admitted during the interrogation: “I was much more optimistic about that than was right.”
It turned out that the UWV also had to fine people who reported that they had accidentally made a mistake. And when then UWV boss Bruno Bruins, later minister for the VVD, asked whether the UWV could warn people who were in danger of making a mistake when applying for benefits, the answer from Asscher’s ministry was: that is not allowed by law. “I wanted to comply with the UWV’s wishes, but there was no legal option,” Asscher said during the interrogation. “The UWV lawyers also disagreed with their boss [dat er ruimte was binnen de wet]it turned out later.”
Distrust
The law was therefore based on distrust, Asscher concluded. “Distrust of citizens and implementation agencies. All room for implementers to take individual cases into account was restricted.” The express intention had been to punish even minor violations. “Fines were not set so high by accident, by the government and both chambers.”
In 2014, the highest court declared that the merciless penalty policy of the fraud law was unlawful. The UWV immediately wanted to reimburse all 66,000 people who had received a fine. A large number of those people had reported financial problems to UWV, Bruins said in an earlier interview with the inquiry committee. Once again, the UWV was rejected by Asscher and his ministry. Only thirteen thousand fines that were still subject to objection and appeal were waived.
Why did Asscher not take the opportunity to compensate people who had suffered under the law, committee member Farid Azarkan wanted to know. “I have been strongly advised not to do that,” Asscher responded. “The fear was that repaying fines retroactively could have implications for all kinds of other laws. Looking back, would I have liked to have done things differently? Yes.”
Fraud law was only amended in 2106
Ultimately, it took until 2016 before the fraud law was amended by Asscher. This adjustment also received criticism about its harshness for citizens, for example from the Council of State. Asscher would have liked to go further, but he estimated, “perhaps incorrectly”, that there was no more option with coalition partner VVD. He had to coordinate adjustments with Henk Kamp, Minister of Economic Affairs in the Rutte II cabinet. “Kamp thought, just like the VVD faction: this is an excellent law.”
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Ultimately, the VVD faction voted against Asscher’s amendment of the law. There was now a parliamentary majority without the VVD. For example, CDA MP Pieter Heerma quickly changed his mind about the fraud law that was partly introduced by his party in the Rutte I cabinet, he said in his interrogation at the inquiry committee on Monday. Heerma heard from councilors and executors that the fraud law “punished people who made a mistake very harshly.” The law focused more on punishing well-intentioned people than the malicious ones. “The focus on people who made a mistake diverted attention from tackling real fraud.”
A version of this article also appeared in the September 26, 2023 newspaper.