The temporary increase in rent allowance, a PVV plan from the spring memorandum, will not proceed. There is no longer financial coverage for this so-called ‘shopping bonus’. This is evident on Thursday from answers by outgoing Minister Eelco Heinen (Finance) to parliamentary questions.
The spring memorandum states that the rent allowance would increase slightly. This was named ‘shopping bonus’, a wish of PVV leader Geert Wilders. It has nothing to do with the price of groceries or the VAT on them, but is purely an increase in the rent allowance.
People who receive rent allowance would therefore have slightly more to spend. It would be a one-off increase of 1 billion euros. But there is not enough financial coverage for that 1 billion euros, Heinen announced on Friday.
This is because the plan to freeze the rents of corporation houses also fell through this week. With the rent freeze, the government would spend less money on rent allowances. The 492 million euros that the government would ‘save’ as a result could have gone to the shopping bonus. But that is not going to happen now.
According to the Council of State, the bill for the rent freeze was created carelessly. The council also says that it leads to unequal treatment of tenants.
In the spring memorandum, it was agreed that rents in the social sector would be frozen for two years. Outgoing Minister Mona Keijzer (Housing) drew up a bill for this, but had to do so under great time pressure before July 1. According to the Council of State, not all steps were taken in the haste.