Last month, the ministry saw a future for the committee, Guidance Committee Digital Support Combating Covid-19, but now Kuipers finds it ‘no longer necessary to fight the pandemic’.
MPs Kees van der Staaij (SGP), Nicki Pouw-Verweij (JA21) and Pieter Omtzigt are surprised by the decision and want an explanation from Minister Kuipers. They think it is premature to abolish the committee, which advises on the use of apps such as the CoronaMelder and the CoronaCheck app, now.
“The government refuses to stop using the corona pass and the QR code, but the committee that issues independent advice on this must already be closed,” says Van der Staaij. The three MPs also point to the 30 million euros that the cabinet is allocating this year for the further development of corona apps.
‘I cannot help but feel that the committee’s critical attitude played a role in the decision to dissolve the committee’, says van der Staaij. Omtzigt also has the impression that critics are being silenced.
External experts
In the spring of 2020, the Ministry of Health (VWS) asked fifteen external experts in the field of privacy, technology, ethics and infectious disease control to provide unsolicited and solicited advice on corona apps, but has been struggling with the role of the committee for some time.
In January, some committee members posted in de Volkskrant question marks over the handling of the Ministry’s advice. These recommendations, at times critical in tone, were sent to the House of Representatives several times when the House could no longer use them because laws had already been passed and debates had already taken place.
At the time, the ministry said that it “certainly still sees a future” in the committee. In the future, however, VWS only wanted advice from the experts, who have only received such a request twice since the start of the crisis. Minister Kuipers assured the House that he would be discussing this with the committee, but according to the committee, that discussion did not take place.
Minister Kuipers also emphasized in reply on parliamentary questions that not he, but his predecessor Hugo de Jonge (CDA) already decided in June last year that the committee could only give solicited advice and informed the House of this. But De Jonge never told the House that the commission’s mandate was being curtailed in that way.
The committee itself did not receive an amended job description and, after De Jonge’s letter to the House, continued to provide unsolicited advice. The minister even once asked the committee for advice on possible adjustments to the CoronaCheck app.
Now also requested advice is therefore ‘no longer necessary’, writes Minister Kuipers. The co-chair of the committee, professor of health technology assessment Erik Buskens (University of Groningen), emphasizes that there is still a need for expert and external advice, for example about the corona ticket, which is still used for international travel and events. “I’m not saying we should give that advice. As long as it gets there’.
Tunnel vision
Last week, the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) strongly criticized the approach to the corona crisis during the first months. The OVV concluded, among other things, that there is ‘the risk of tunnel vision’ in retaining information from a small group of advisers.
Kuipers says that if he needs multidisciplinary advice in the future about the use of technological resources in the fight against corona, he will turn to ‘other, already existing bodies’, such as two task forces. They were set up at the same time as the advisory committee, but have been inactive for months.