New parliament has fewer bicultural MPs, more manual workers

The new look lower house of parliament will have more MPs from the regions and more manual workers but will be less culturally diverse than the current one which bows out later on Tuesday, according to research by Trouw. New MPs include a supermarket manager, a poffertjes stand owner and a metal worker, and the number of MPs with trade school qualifications rather than a degree will almost double to 19, Trouw found. But in the new look lower house, just 24 are bicultural, and 10 of them come from the 27-strong GroenLinks/PvdA alliance. “Diversity is lower on the agendas of right wing parties and they have made big gains,” said Ian van der Kooye, director of Kleur de Kamer, an organisation that works to boost cultural diversity in government.