The cabinet wants to see whether children from poor neighborhoods can get food at school, for example breakfast. This is to prevent children who are not fed at home from falling over in the classroom.
That is what Minister Carola Schouten (Poverty Policy, ChristenUnie) said in Question Time today. wrote last week NRC about a school in Rotterdam where a child became unwell on Monday. According to the mother, the money ran out on Friday and the family hadn’t eaten anything all weekend. Schouten called the report in the newspaper ‘heartbreaking’. “Of course it affects you.”
In answer to questions from PvdA leader Attje Kuiken, Schouten said that she is in talks with the Youth Education Fund to see whether ‘where the problems are greatest’ children can have ‘breakfast or something similar’. “We have some idea of which schools are involved,” said the minister. Both her ministry and the Ministry of Education contacted the relevant Rotterdam school, but it turned out that a lot of help had already been offered.
Halving poverty will be ‘difficult’
That was not enough for a shocked House of Representatives. The opposition demanded from Schouten ‘concrete measures’ how families can continue to pay their bills, despite the high energy prices. According to the House, the problems will only get worse because one in ten children is at risk of growing up in poverty if people’s purchasing power does not improve, the CPB fears. The government wants to halve the number of children growing up in poverty. “That will be difficult”, Schouten acknowledged. “But that does not mean that we are not doing anything.”
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Schouten was not yet able to say which measures the cabinet will take. “I have to wait for Prinsjesdag, but that does not mean that we are sitting still,” she said. Kuiken qualified that as ‘an empty answer’. , bitter SP leader Lilian Marijnissen.
Too little money left
According to GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver, it was an ’embarrassing display’. “A minister who comes here without any answer. There are children who are falling over in this country. That’s not because they can’t find access to schemes, as the coalition states, but it’s because people are left with too little money due to high energy prices.”
Klaver challenged Schouten to show ‘leadership’ and to promise that the cabinet will solve the problems for this group. Schouten refused and referred again to Prinsjesdag, next Tuesday. ,,We are working on it. Something has to be done for livelihoods.”
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