Proposition 54K2227

Projet de loi modifiant la loi-programme du 27 avril 2007 en ce qui concerne l'octroi du tarif social pour le gaz et l'électricité, et modifiant l'arrêté royal du 29 mars 2012 fixant les règles de détermination du coût de l'application des tarifs sociaux par les entreprises d'électricité et les règles d'intervention pour leur prise en charge.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Leen Dierick, Nahima Lanjri, Els Van Hoof
MR Sybille de Coster-Bauchau
N-VA Wouter Raskin, Bert Wollants
Open Vld Nele Lijnen

Submission date

Dec. 15, 2016

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

price of energy disabled person reduced price welfare

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI ∉ Open Vld N-VA MR PVDA | PTB PP VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 31, 2019 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteur is Mr Casier.

I refer to the written report.

Can I ask those who want to intervene on some points during the meeting to sign up?

I urge members who want to participate in our discussions to come and register with me.

During the current cold winter days, we usually put the heating at home a degree higher. You probably do that too. For some people, however, the energy bill can therefore rise high.

Fortunately, there are social corrections, including for electricity and gas bills. After all, there is a social rate for gas and electricity, which is awarded to, for example, people with a living wage, people with an integration approach, thus disabled, and people with an income guarantee for the elderly or an accommodation assistance to the elderly. These are just a few examples of people who today have a social rate for gas and electricity.

However, some people and target groups do not get what they are entitled to. What is going wrong? This is something the Ombudsman has been talking about for years. In the Disability Service, it can take a long time, sometimes months or a year, before people get an answer to their request for an integration or income replacement benefit. As a result, they also lose their social tariffs for gas and electricity. After all, if the decision takes a year to wait, they will face a problem.

Someone, for example, in January 2018 applied for recognition as a person with a disability and thus asks for an integration assistance. If he or she receives his or her decision only now, in January 2019, then the person concerned will thankfully receive his or her benefit with retroactive effect. However, the reduction, i.e. the social tariff for gas and electricity, does not apply with retroactive effect. This is not stipulated in legislation.

The Ombudsman has addressed the problem several times. I, together with Ms. Leen Dierick, submitted a bill and members of other political groups signed the bill with the aim of addressing the problem. We have pledged in the bill to grant the reduction also with retroactive effect.

After all, colleagues, when an average family with an average consumption has to wait a year and pay too much for electricity for a year, that family suffers a loss of about 280 euros per year, which is enormously much for people with disabilities, who already do not have it broad.

I am therefore very pleased that the bill I have submitted has received broad support in the committee. It was unanimously supported and approved, both by the opposition and by the majority. For this I would like to thank you once again. It is really a good thing that people with disabilities, the weakest in our society, get what they are entitled to.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, this important bill solves a problem that has long existed. Ms. Lanjri has well outlined the system and the challenge. In fact, it was necessary to ensure that people with disabilities get what they are entitled to easier and faster.

The Federal Ombudsman had to report this over and over again without anything happening. So it was no more than logical that parliamentarians took the bill in their own hands. After all, we are here for that. I am also proud that our former colleague Wouter Raskin, together with Mrs Lanjri, worked hard to write down this proposal.

I am even more proud that we are able to ⁇ results effectively. We have once again received a warning from the Federal Ombudsman, at a time when the bill had already been submitted. That, of course, caused a certain urgency across the room and I am glad that we were able to respond quickly and appropriately. Those people have the right to get it as soon as possible.

This bill responds to their concerns. They have to get what they are entitled to, that’s the point. That is what we want to offer them and we will therefore support this bill with conviction.

Yesterday was held a joint meeting of the Social Affairs and Economy Committees. On this occasion, I noticed that, since the beginning of this year, the disability sector has been under the fire of the news in our country. Regardless of the circumstances, it is a good thing in itself.

Thus, as early as January 9th, our two committees gathered heard the Federal Mediators’ College, which gave us two recommendations for the disabled sector. In addition, he advocated for a citizens-oriented administration, orientation which should be a priority.

This leads us, today, to debate and – in any case, I hope – to approve a bill that should finally concrete the retroactivity of the grant decisions regarding the social energy tariff for people with disabilities. I say “Finally” because the journey was long, as Mr. Wollants just pointed out. The problem is not from yesterday. Federal Ombudsmen had already issued recommendations in previous years. These recommendations did not echo in the camp of the government and of the majority – I must see that.

Paradoxically, there was a unanimous vote on 15 January. Therefore, it would have been necessary to wait until we are in current affairs, that the government is “impotent” in order for the case to have a favorable outcome. However, it is not a mistake to have questioned the competent ministers.

That being said, today we rejoice. The Socialist group voted this bill with conviction in committee, as it will do in plenary session. There is no doubt that the vote will be a step forward. That being said, I draw the attention of the authors and all the colleagues who support this bill on the fact that the question of retroactivity has been the object of resistance. There were brakes. There was inertia. And ⁇ , there will still be obstacles to implementation. We must therefore remain vigilant.

The voting of the law is a first step, but it will need to be effectively implemented.

Behind the question of the social tariff for energy lies the question of the automaticity of all social rights, an essential issue, especially in the fight against poverty, for the access of all our fellow citizens to their rights. If some points have been realised, there is still a lot of work in this area and, unfortunately, too often a lot of obstacles. Today we are taking a step.

There is another thing to do, since, in the recommendations of mediators, there was also the issue of decision-making for medical reviews that are favorable to the applicant. I hope that the bill proposed by our colleague, Ms. Jiroflée, will be able to be examined by our Social Affairs Committee to give rise to a second recommendation and to a demand from the sector which, in addition, is also quite legitimate.

If I take a little backward from the policy in favour of persons with disabilities during this legislature – we talked about it again long yesterday – I will quote a recent opinion of the National Higher Council of Persons with Disabilities of January 22, 2019, which lists all the unsuccessful files and all the unsuccessful requests of the sector and the persons with disabilities themselves.

I ⁇ won’t be exhaustive, but I reminded that the request was the reform of the 1987 Disability Benefits Act that no longer corresponds to today’s realities. The sector insists that this reform is based on the needs and expectations of people with disabilities and not on the assessments of a few experts.

Then, the question of close caregivers was also not resolved during this legislature. The substance of the subject has not even been addressed.

There is a third major demand, which is to raise the income replacement allowance to the level of the poverty threshold, not to mention sufficient human resources for the General Directorate for Persons with Disabilities to render services to all applicants. Recruitment is underway, while the staff has been reduced by 10% during this legislature.

Dear colleagues, in short, beyond today’s positive vote, I hope that people with disabilities will remain at the center of everyone’s attention over the coming months and especially when drafting a new government agreement. Very little has been done. Everything remains to be done!

I am not going to be too long on the subject since we have already given a number of explanations. Some of you may know that persons with disabilities or recognized as such are entitled to an allowance from the Directorate-General Persons with Disabilities, with retroactive effect when it was granted with a certain delay. You also know that there is a waiting time and processing of files that can take many months in some Regions of the country.

When these persons receive their allowance, the retroactive effect shall be taken into account. This was not the case for residential protected customers in terms of gas and electricity. Where they were entitled to the allowance, it took effect only on the first day of the quarter during which the administration had decided to grant them that allowance. This means that there were still a large number of allocators who were deprived of this indispensable aid while we know that they are sometimes very precarious right holders.

It is therefore to respond to this damaging situation that this bill has been submitted. We can only rejoice. As Mr. Delizée said, during the two hearings of both the mediator and the entire General Directorate and the various persons who were present, yesterday, we were able to measure the importance of settling the problem of granting the allocation with retroactivity.

Today, we are really happy to see that people who are among the most vulnerable in our society will be entitled to this benefit. We will, of course, support this text that brings a lasting solution to these people.

We are, of course, very pleased and satisfied that the present bill has been dealt with very quickly by the committee. We have already stated in the committee that we support the proposal and we will also do so in the plenary session.

However, we regret that it took so long before the bill was presented, but it has nevertheless happened thanks to the ongoing call of the Federal Ombudsman. Fortunately he was heard, and maybe it is also a happy coincidence that the government has fallen; otherwise we might have debated about it for a few more years. They are the most vulnerable group in our society. For those people, every euro counts, especially given the tight budget with which they have to do it.

At the same time, we should not be blind to another number of structural problems at the public service DG Persons with Disabilities, such as the long waiting time for a allowance or a parking card. The service is also not optimal. This is evidenced by the contacts with the competent services, which really need to be made more accessible. We are of the opinion that the citizen should not become the victim and therefore urge a prompt treatment by the Social Affairs Committee of our Bill No. 3352 on the procedure for handling the files concerning benefits to persons with disabilities in order to avoid unjustified loss of rights by persons with disabilities.

As stated, we will support the present bill, but we urge the examination of the aforementioned bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Mrs. Lanjri for her presentation and her text.

I will draw your attention to two points. This text is now born from a proposal, after six years of constant reminders from the Federal Ombudsman indicating that there is a concern. The Ombudsman had already made recommendations to prevent the rights of persons with disabilities being violated – as protected residential customers, they benefit from the application of the social energy tariff. I would like everyone to be aware of the fact that we are talking in this case about people, people who are in situations that grant them rights and that they do not benefit from them. Admit that this situation is shocking!

The disability allowance is allocated with retroactive effect. Today, the same will happen for the social tariff for electricity and gas. Not only does the Federal Ombudsman ring the alarm bell in 2013, the government is aware of it, but from 2014 to 2017, parliamentarians in committees also intervene with the minister, who answers whatever it is. But no, we don’t follow him.

What do we do today, when two ministerial arrests would have been enough to restore rights to people? We are fortunate that we are in this particular situation to be able to act. Admit that it is shocking to be at this level and to have to treat things this way when we had already denounced the shortcomings.

This was neither a priority nor a concern of the Minister in charge of Energy. She had the lead on this file and she did not use it. As I told you, it was enough to change two ministerial decrees to change the situation of people with rights. Please acknowledge, dear colleagues, that this is disturbing! This is especially so since, in the course of the acts, one realizes that things were very different from one province to another.

I don’t make a difference between the South and the North because, whatever the situation, the numbers were different. We did not have the retroactive effect but, in Belgium, people had certain rights at some times and others at other times. Not everything was filled in the same way.

Fortunately, with the proposal presented today, we will solve this problem. Believe me, we are very pleased. We especially think of people who are in this situation and who now need to push out a buzz of relief. We will therefore support the text that is submitted to us today.