Low-income families waiting for energy allowance as municipalities wait for law to pass

Low-income households are again entitled to a 1,300 euros energy allowance this year but still can’t apply for it. The government only sent the bill that regulates the allowance to parliament two weeks ago, and municipalities can’t pay it out before the law is in place, NOS reports.

Many municipalities have been ready for months to pay out the allowance, the association of Dutch municipalities VNG told the broadcaster. “We are very sorry that this process has been delayed, but we can do nothing but wait for the law from The Hague,” a spokesperson said. Without the law, the municipalities won’t receive money for the allowance. And their budgets are so tight that few can afford to pay out of their own pocket in the meantime.

When the energy crisis started last year, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the government arranged the energy allowance without passing a law. “Anticipating a law” is allowed in an emergency. “It is very exceptional to sideline parliament,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment told NOS. “Last year, there was a crisis because the war surprised us. Now we have a price cap and other purchasing power measures, and the situation is so different that a law has to be passed.”

The government announced on Budget Day in September last year that it would give an energy allowance to low-income households again this year. According to the Ministry, the fact that it only submitted the bill to do so two weeks ago is due to students and their right to the allowance. Last year, the government excluded students from the allowance, but several courts ruled it wasn’t allowed.

The Ministry needed to figure out what to do about students, and that took until two weeks ago, the spokesperson said. The Ministry decided to give some students a limited allowance - students who live away from home with a supplementary grant will receive 400 euros this year.

Municipalities don’t understand what took so long. “Some residents still have a very high energy bill they cannot pay. And now we are not allowed to pay out the money yet, while we already had everything ready in January,” a spokesperson for the municipality of Assen told NOS. Alderman Cor Staal wondered why the Ministry didn’t just handle students separately like it did last year.

The VNG expects that municipalities will start paying out the energy allowance in October at the earliest. If the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, declares the matter too controversial for the caretaker Cabinet to arrange, it will take even longer. But the Ministry of Social Affairs doesn’t expect that to happen. “The Kamer has indicated that it considers poverty reduction a very important subject,” the Ministry spokesperson said.

On Thursday, Statistics Netherlands reported that households, on average, pay 37 percent more for gas and electricity than a year ago. That amounts to an increase of 630 euros in their annual account.