News item | 25-05-2022 | 16:45
At the end of last year, € 150 million was made available to help households make their homes more sustainable. In March, the cabinet decided to add an extra €150 million to take energy-saving measures. Due to the urgent problems that households are currently experiencing due to the high energy prices, the government wants to pay this money out to municipalities earlier. That is what Minister De Jonge for Housing and Spatial Planning writes to the Senate and House of Representatives. €68.5 million from the National Insulation Program from 2021 will also be made available for the local insulation approach of municipalities.
Minister De Jonge: ‘Municipalities have made an active start with the € 150 million that was paid out at the beginning of this year. With this money they were able to help as many vulnerable households as possible as quickly as possible. Due to the increased seriousness and scope of the problems caused by the increased energy prices, the cabinet wants to quickly pay the extra money to the municipalities to intensify and expand the existing approach. In this way, households can be supported in the short term to take energy-saving measures.’
Statistics Netherlands finds that for households with a low income and a variable or expiring energy contract, energy costs as a share of disposable income rise much faster. TNO calculated last autumn that approximately 550 thousand households are faced with energy poverty: they have high energy costs, often live in a house that is not well insulated and have a low income. According to Statistics Netherlands, the size of this group has increased due to current developments and the seriousness of the problem has also increased further with rising energy prices. This also means that the problems that municipalities face in supporting households with energy-saving measures have become greater and (even) more urgent.
Due to the increased seriousness and scope of the problems as a result of the increased energy prices, the cabinet wants to make payments to the municipalities in anticipation of formal authorization by both Houses. The cabinet is therefore invoking Article 2.27, second paragraph, of the Accounts Payable Act 2016.