There is nothing wrong with the bed-bath-bread scheme for people without a residence permit, such as asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies. State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum) swears this in a short letter to the House of Representatives. As agreed in the coalition agreement, the so-called National Aliens Facility (LVV) will be expanded to a nationwide network.
Sources from The Hague confirm that pressure has been exerted on Van der Burg to reverse his earlier decision not to spend any more money on it by 2024.
Van der Burg wanted to scrap the scheme, which costs about 30 million euros annually, because cuts had to be made, a spokesman for the State Secretary said on Tuesday. It caused a lot of commotion, including among the coalition parties D66 and ChristenUnie. MPs from both factions immediately announced that they did not want to get rid of the scheme.
But Van der Burg has also been told at other political levels that scrapping the scheme goes against earlier agreements and had to be withdrawn.
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The letter from the State Secretary to the House therefore shows a turn of 180 degrees. ‘The cabinet will discuss the continuation of the LVV with the municipalities. The aim is to reach administrative agreements in line with the coalition agreement, whereby financing is made possible from the asylum funds,’ writes Van der Burg.
Not only politicians in The Hague, but also municipalities reacted furiously, not least because they were not informed in advance about the decision of the State Secretary. In 2019, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Groningen, Rotterdam and Utrecht started a pilot for people without a residence permit.
Don Ceder of the ChristenUnie is ‘happy that the Secretary of State has come to different insights and is still going to ensure decent reception’, says the Member of Parliament in an initial response.
The provision has been extremely sensitive for years. The pilot was a compromise between PvdA and VVD, Rutte II’s coalition parties. That cabinet almost fell over the issue in 2015.
The House of Representatives will debate on asylum reception on Wednesday.
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