For example, a paragraph was completely removed from the text, which describes the euro-denominated effect of housing benefit cuts at their worst.
Parliamentary On Friday, the social and health committee completed the processing of the surgery related to housing allowance. The governing parties removed several passages from the text describing the negative effects of the cut.
This is evident when you compare the draft report received by HS with the final text of the report.
The draft in question, written by parliament officials, was distributed to the committee members at Thursday evening’s meeting. The governing parties were not satisfied with the draft, but demanded a break and marched to the next meeting room to edit the text.
They have every right to do so, because the government always has a majority in the committees.
The committees process the government’s bills and give reports on them to the parliament. They hear plenty of experts and go through whether the text of the bill should possibly be filed. The text of the reports is based on the government’s proposal and information received from experts.
The Parliament finally decides on the laws in the plenary session, where the reports prepared by the committees are the basis of the proceedings.
Government cuts several social benefits in next year’s budget, and housing allowance is one of the most important of them.
In the expert consultations, attention was paid to the fact that the weakening of the housing allowance can have an effect in many ways and can be seen, among other things, as a labor shortage. The governing parties completely deleted one example area from the text.
Draft report:
“During the committee’s expert consultation, attention was also paid to the fact that the removal of the earned income deduction can make it difficult to obtain labor in some low-wage sectors, especially in cities with high housing costs. As an example, access to personal assistance has been brought up. Personal assistants usually work part-time and there is currently a shortage of them.”
Final report:
“Furthermore, attention has been paid to the fact that the removal of the earned income deduction may make it difficult for some low-wage earners to find work, especially in cities with high housing costs.”
The draft report described the effects in the capital region:
“Almost everyone in Helsinki who receives general housing allowance already exceeds the current maximum housing expenses, so the change affects almost all recipients of housing allowance in Helsinki.”
However, this was not included in the final text of the report:
“Almost everyone in Helsinki who receives general housing allowance already exceeds the current maximum housing expenses.”
Children in the weakest position were also edited out of the text. The draft stated as follows:
“The committee draws attention to the fact that the proposal already applies to changes in housing allowance to the most disadvantaged children and families with children, and the show thus has the effect of increasing poverty in families with children.”
Final report:
“The committee draws attention to the fact that the housing allowance changes already target low-income families with children, so the proposal has the effect of increasing poverty in families with children.”
Draft report:
“According to the Environment Committee, the changes proposed in the government’s proposal, together with the increase in living and housing costs, may increase the need to apply for a more affordable rental apartment than the current one or to switch from owner-occupied housing to rented housing. However, finding a more affordable apartment can be difficult due to the large number of applicants.“
Final report:
“According to the Environment Committee, the changes proposed in the government’s proposal, together with the increase in living and housing costs, may increase the need to apply for a more affordable rental apartment than the current one or to switch from owning to renting.”
The euro-denominated effects on owner-occupiers and renters were completely removed from the text. Originally, the draft report read as follows:
“According to the information received by the Social and Health Committee from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the maximum effects of the proposed changes are aimed at owner-occupied dwellings, where, depending on the size of the household, the maximum effects would be from 466 to 1,377 euros. For those living in rented apartments, the maximum effects are from 202 to 516 euros, depending on the size of the household.”
This information provided by the ministry was removed from the finished report.
Committee member Lee Andersson (left) characterizes the actions of the governing parties as a “farce” in its own bulletin.
“They [hallituspuolueet] have tried to rewrite the texts produced by the committee’s officials and remove impact assessments from them, for example, about how much poverty in families with children will increase. Even the paragraph describing the amount of the maximum changes in housing allowance ended up being deleted, and in addition, an attempt was made to include fictitious employment effects in the report,” says Andersson.
According to Andersson, the representatives of the governing parties in the social and health committee are trying to “clean up all embarrassing expert information for the government from the committee’s report”.
The opposition raised objections to the report on housing allowance, the center raised its objections, and the Sdp, the Left and the Greens jointly raised objections.
Work atmosphere there is a lot of inflammation in the committee, which HS told about already before. In addition to housing allowance, the committee also has to deal with bills concerning index freezes of social benefits and weakening of unemployment security, where work is still in progress.
The processing is in a hurry, because the austerity laws related to next year’s budget must be approved before Christmas. The governing parties have blamed the chairman Krista Kiurua (sd) for the delay, and this in turn characterized the past week as a fiasco and accused the governing parties of returning to issues that were no longer on the agenda.
In governing parties, the key person is the vice-chairman Mia Laiho (cook). The personal chemistry between Kiuru and him is characterized by the committee as “absolutely terrible”.
Committee resumes on Monday at 2 p.m., which indicates exceptional time pressure. Parliament is not in session on Monday, and MPs are usually in the provinces at meetings of municipal and regional councils. The deadline for all reports is next Tuesday.
On Friday, the committee started its first meeting at 8 o’clock in the morning and continued the meeting after the short plenary session of the parliament.
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