There are parties in the House of Representatives who are annoyed that the government has spent far too much money in recent years and that it should learn to cut back. There are also parties who see opportunities for a government that does much more, regardless of the costs. But the House of Representatives agrees from left to right on one thing: the way the cabinet spends its money now, it can no longer be done like this.
Not the size of the expenditure, but the cabinet’s cash management came under fire on Wednesday during the annual accountability debate. Because the housekeeping book threatens to become a mess. Like doubting exam candidates, the ministers of Rutte IV continue to supplement and correct their budgets on the assembly line.
That is already becoming a chaotic affair, but now the House of Representatives is also sidelined. Thanks to an exception clause in the law. Members of parliament should in all cases be able to participate in discussions about any amendment to the budget. That ‘budget right’ is one of the essential tasks of parliament. Only in exceptional cases where urgency is required, the cabinet may choose to move forward and make money available before the House has had its say. If a bank threatens to collapse or a dike breaks and the cabinet wants to intervene, the money is needed immediately.
Stretched further and further
So far the original intention of the ground for exception and the associated urgent procedure, because the application is no longer so rare. Everything that falls under ‘haste’ is stretched to completely new definitions under Rutte IV, the Court of Audit established two weeks ago on Accountability Day.
The emergency procedure was used no fewer than forty times in the past year. For compensating entrepreneurs after the water damage in Limburg and extra corona care, but also for Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Banner Bearer and to commemorate the slavery past.
The result: a supporting role for the House of Representatives. And the MPs have tobacco from that. “The writing of blank checks really has to stop,” said VVD MP Eelco Heinen in the debate. Heinen also wants to give parliament the last word in such situations.
Read alsoThe Court of Audit sees the Netherlands falling through the ice in the event of a new crisis
A large part of the House of Representatives supports his proposal to determine for itself as a House whether enough information has been provided before the cabinet makes an exceptional expenditure. The cabinet can then no longer decide on its own. “We really need to recapture the budget right of the House,” said PvdA MP Henk Nijboer in agreement.
The frequent use of an exception to spend money faster is just one of the ways in which the budget books of the ministries have become more and more messy. The Court of Audit has been handing out unsatisfactory results for financial management for four years now, and even the best-informed specialists at the Council of State are finding it increasingly difficult to scrutinize the financial figures. In the new Spring Memorandum, despite firm language about cutbacks, it remains unclear exactly how many euros the cabinet will remove.
This confusion is further fed by the constant replenishment of budgets. According to the booklet, after the presentation on Prinsjesdag, the budget will be amended twice more: at the end of the year in the Autumn Memorandum and at the beginning of the new year in the Spring Memorandum. There is room to process new developments and unexpected expenses and income.
If ministers want to adjust their budgets in the meantime, that is also possible. For this there is the ‘incidental supplementary budget’, which can be used at any time. The House of Representatives may participate, but a minister does not have to wait six months.
From 2020, the popularity of the incidental supplementary budget as a political tool has exploded. Initially, the cabinet pointed to the corona crisis, then to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis. But even for these extra budgets, once intended for urgent matters, the boundaries of what really cannot wait are shifting.
Read alsoThe cabinet shifted and scattered billions, but that generosity stops
Because the cabinet has also started spending much more in the same years than before, it is becoming very difficult to keep track of all money flows. In many places, for example, money remains on the shelf due to ‘underspending’, which is then used for other purposes. Elsewhere, the cabinet structurally estimates the costs too low: as a result, money is always needed for asylum reception.
Policy hardly controllable
The result: the financial specialists of the House of Representatives and the veterans of the Court of Audit and the Council of State hardly manage to properly monitor budget policy. ,,Stop with political bookkeeping”, Henk Nijboer sighed to Minister of Finance Sigrid Kaag (D66) and Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) in the debate room of the Chamber.
Kaag was keen to emphasize that the cabinet came off better in the Court’s latest Accountability Survey than in the previous three years. She pointed out that it is not for nothing that she set up a task force to help the ministries get their finances in order, with courses such as ‘Help, I have a shortcoming’. And Kaag once again repeated the aftershocks of the crises she and her fellow ministers had to deal with. The Court of Audit thought otherwise two weeks ago. The pandemic could have led to a better awareness of a good housekeeping book, so that things would go well at most ministries in the event of a new crisis.
Instead, the President of the Audit Chamber, Ewout Irrgang, concluded that ‘the ice is still too thin’ at the ministries. And, he predicted: “If we get into a crisis again, we will fall right back out.”