Hülya Kat (born 1 August 1983) is a Dutch politician, serving as a member of the House of Representatives on behalf of the social liberal party

Democrats 66 Democrats 66 (; abbreviated D66, ) is a Social liberalism, social liberal List of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands, which positions itself in the Centrism, centre of the Left–right political spectrum, p ...

(D66). She was a member of the Velsen

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counci ...

between 2010 and 2018, when she was elected to the

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

council. Kat won a seat in the House in the 2021 general election.

Early life and education

Kat was born in 1983 in the

North Holland North Holland ( nl, Noord-Holland, ) is a province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevoland. In November 2019, it had a ...

port town of

IJmuiden IJ_(digraph).html" ;"title="n IJ (digraph)">n IJ (digraph) and that should remain the only places where they are used. > IJmuiden () is a port city in the Netherlands, Dutch province of North Holland. It is the main town in the municipality ...

to Turkish-born parents, who had come to the Netherlands in 1970. She grew up in that town and in

Santpoort-Noord Santpoort-Noord () or North Santpoort is a village in the municipality of Velsen in the Dutch province of North Holland. It lies about 6 km (3.7 mi) north of Haarlem. Santpoort developed in the dunes near the Brederode Castle. In 1870, a ...

with her two younger brothers, and she attended the

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...

secondary school Erasmus College. Kat studied law at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...

between 2002 and 2009 with intellectual property law as specialization and returned to her parents in IJmuiden afterwards.

Career

She joined

in 2009 and first appeared on the ballot in the 2010 municipal election in Velsen as the party's fifth candidate. D66 won four municipal council seats, but Kat was elected despite this result because of her

preference votes In psychology, economics and philosophy, preference is a technical term usually used in relation to choosing between alternatives. For example, someone prefers A over B if they would rather choose A than B. Preferences are central to decision the ...

. At the time, Kat also volunteered at the Velsen animal ambulance. She became chair of the municipality's John van Dijk Fund, which aims to engage young people in politics, shortly after her election. Kat's focus in the council was on safety and public order, and she was re-elected in 2014 as D66's third candidate. She was also placed 38th on the

party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...

in the

2017 general election This national electoral calendar for 2017 lists the national/federal elections held in 2017 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *5 November ...

. Kat received 2,685 preference votes, but she was not elected due to D66 winning nineteen seats. She moved to the Dutch capital of Amsterdam in 2018, while she was working as an HR officer at a cleaning company. Kat was D66's ninth candidate in Amsterdam in the 2018 municipal election, which was held a month after she had left the Velsen municipal council. Her party won eight seats in Amsterdam, but Kat did end up in the municipal council in May 2018, when another D66 member left the council. She became her party's spokesperson for economic affairs, port, airport, and spatial planning and the chair of the mobility, air quality, and water committee. She also started working as a senior staff and organizational advisor at the Amsterdam district court in June 2018. Kat ran again for member of parliament in the 2021 general election, being placed seventeenth on the party list. She received 15,620 preference votes and was sworn into the House of Representatives on 31 March. She was replaced in the Amsterdam municipal council that same day, and she left her job at the district court. In the House, Kat's specializations were poverty, debts, and the

childcare benefits scandal The Dutch childcare benefits scandal ( nl, kinderopvangtoeslagaffaire or , ) is a political scandal in the Netherlands concerning false allegations of fraud made by the Tax and Customs Administration while attempting to regulate the distributi ...

, the Participation Act, and law, and she is on the Committees for Credentials, Defence, Finance, Justice and Security (chair), Public Expenditure, and Social Affairs and Employment (vice chair). In October 2021, she also took over Rens Raemakers's position on the committee of the

parliamentary inquiry into natural gas extraction Groningen The parliamentary inquiry into natural gas extraction Groningen ( nl, Parlementaire enquête naar aardgaswinning Groningen) was a parliamentary inquiry by the Dutch House of Representatives between 2021 and 2023 and was investigating the natural g ...

. She was her party's in Amsterdam in the 2022 municipal elections. Following reports in March 2022 about an administrator who had embezzled money from debtors he was managing the finances of, Kat suggested changes to the system. She proposed for municipalities to provide a central point for help in case of high debts, which would create a three-year plan to get out of debt and to prevent a repeat. This is supposed to prevent debts continuing for many years, which could be in the financial interest of the administrator. In late 2022, the House of Representatives passed a

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and mea ...

by Kat to have the government provide free period products to low-income households. Another amendment co-filed by Kat was carried to shorten the term for personal

debt restructuring Debt restructuring is a process that allows a private or public company or a sovereign entity facing cash flow problems and financial distress to reduce and renegotiate its delinquent debts to improve or restore liquidity so that it can continue ...

from three to one and a half years. Kat has been part of the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of UNESCO Centrum Nederland, which provides development aid, since 2012.

Personal life

She moved from Amsterdam to

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, while a member of parliament, and she is a supporter of the football club AZ Alkmaar.

Electoral history

References

External links

Personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kat, Hulya 1983 births 21st-century Dutch politicians 21st-century Dutch women politicians Democrats 66 politicians Dutch people of Turkish descent Living people Members of the House of Representatives (Netherlands) Municipal councillors of Amsterdam People from Velsen University of Groningen alumni