Response to interpellations 2025/26:423 and 443 on measures against social dumping
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 2 S considers social dumping to be a serious problem where people are treated as cost items 1 2. 3 S argues that the government downplays the problem 3, does not take the issue seriously 4 and that the government does not acknowledge the extent of the problem 5 3. 3 S wants to make it easier to forcibly manage properties, demolish these, and go after actors who profit from the problems 3 6. 6 S argues that the previous Social Democratic government acted through investigations and inquiries 6. 7 KD defends that they do not like social dumping 7 but argues that they have prioritized other inquiries and have already taken measures 7. 7 KD emphasizes that substandard housing does not fall under the Civil Minister's responsibility 7.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Civilministern Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! Eva Lindh has asked me if I intend to take the initiative for a new investigation and for concrete measures, including legislation, that can prevent social dumping between municipalities and strengthen the protection for people in vulnerable situations.
Peder Björk has asked me if I share the view that social dumping between municipalities, where people are moved against their will and placed in substandard housing, is a serious societal problem, and if I, in that case, intend to take any measures to counteract this.
According to the Social Services Act (2025:400), each municipality has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that individuals receive the help they need. In the vast majority of cases, it is the municipality where the individual is resident that is responsible for that support. It may, however, occur that municipalities actively contribute to persons in need of support interventions moving to another municipality without the person themselves having expressed a clear desire to move.
Active participation in settlement in another municipality is, in practice, about how municipalities act towards socially vulnerable persons, what availability of housing there is, and what opportunities there are to obtain a job that it is possible to support oneself on. A large proportion of those who have previously moved through active participation have been newly arrived. In this context, it is important to point out that the number of persons granted residence permits for protection reasons in Sweden has decreased sharply for some time.
In the regulatory letter for 2024, the county administrative boards were tasked, within the framework of their ordinary work, to report on whether the municipalities within the county actively contribute to their municipal residents settling in other municipalities. From the reporting in the annual reports, a mixed picture emerges. It is difficult to draw any definite conclusions regarding how widespread the approach is and what consequences it has had, but it has not emerged that it is currently being used to any significant extent.
The question of active participation in settlement in another municipality concerns, among other things, how the municipalities handle their responsibility according to, for example, the Social Services Act and how they cooperate with one another. The Government is keen that there is a well-functioning cooperation between the municipalities and continues to follow the issue.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! Social dumping sounds almost like a technical term – like something administrative that happens in the margins. But that is not what it is about. It is about people, families who find themselves in a vulnerable situation, who are told that it might be better to move somewhere else. It is about single mothers who leave the small network they have. It is about people with mental illness who lose contact with the people who know them and who know what support they need. It is about children who have to pack their things, leave their school and say goodbye to their friends – not because it is best for them, but because the adult world does not take responsibility. This is social dumping, and it is unworthy of a welfare country like Sweden.
Madam Speaker! We Social Democrats believe in collective responsibility, we believe that municipalities should help people and we believe in solidarity. We believe in taking responsibility. What is happening today is that some municipalities are forced to bear a disproportionately large responsibility while others in practice export their social challenges. The result is that municipalities that already have strained economic conditions face even greater challenges.
When a larger number of people with extensive support needs move in, it affects the social services. It affects the social assistance, the school, the school health services, child and adolescent psychiatry, the possibility to plan the operations, and often the possibility of getting a job.
Municipal politicians across the country are trying to do the impossible. They are trying to make the budget balance and dimension the operations correctly. They must ensure that there is enough staff in social services and in schools. But how can one plan when you do not know what needs will suddenly arise because other municipalities have not taken their responsibility? How can one make long-term decisions when reality changes, sometimes overnight?
The Minister stated in his response that it can occur that municipalities actively contribute to people in need of support measures moving to another municipality.
The Minister is responsible for this issue. The Minister should know that it is so and that it does not just occur, but that it does occur. He could have known this much better if he had not laid down the investigation that we commissioned, if he had truly been interested in finding out how it actually looks or if he had actually visited the municipalities that are sounding the alarm and seen how this affects people and municipalities.
I hope that the Minister can at least think of all the people who are actually affected by this. If one is serious about the work principle, perhaps one should not make it even harder to get a job, which is what this often entails. People are moved from a municipality where unemployment is quite low to a municipality where unemployment is higher.
Peder Björk (S)
Madam Speaker! The debate on social dumping is fundamentally about something much larger than municipal boundaries. It is actually about human dignity. It is about what happens when people in vulnerable situations are treated as cost items that can be moved around on a map.
People experience being pressured to move from one municipality to another, and these moves often lead to housing with low standards, unsafe environments, and insecure housing contracts. Furthermore, the moves most often occur to places where the opportunity for self-sufficiency is worse than at the place one is forced to move from.
This, Madam Speaker, is seriously serious, but it is obvious when one hears the Minister's answer that the Minister and the SD government do not want to see this.
There is also another side of the problem that we must dare to speak about. The social dumping does not occur in a vacuum but is enabled by a market, where certain property owners have built their entire business model on buying up declining properties in municipalities with a weak housing market and then renting them out to people who lack alternatives.
It is about houses with major maintenance deficiencies, it is about overcrowding, it is about insecure living environments, and it is about people who most often lack both the power and the opportunity to make demands. In the middle of this, there are property owners who profit from the vulnerability.
In recent years, we have repeatedly been able to read reviews in, among other places, the newspaper Hem & Hyra about people who have been moved into housing with extensive deficiencies. It is about houses with mold, leaking roofs, and broken ventilation. It is simply about properties that many of us would never ourselves accept to live in. Yet, people in very vulnerable situations are expected to do just that.
Madam Speaker! Social dumping is not just a move but a chain. First, people are forced to move, then they end up in substandard housing, and after that, someone makes money from their vulnerability. Even this chain must be broken for us to tackle social dumping. The truth is that if these accommodations had not existed, the extent of the social dumping would have been significantly smaller. Therefore, it is not enough to, as the Minister did, speak about the municipalities' responsibility. We must also dare to look up and speak about the economic forces that make money from the system.
My question to the Minister for Civil Affairs is therefore: Does the Minister see a connection between social dumping and the presence of unscrupulous property owners?
Civilministern Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! First and foremost, I do not defend the phenomenon that is occasionally called social dumping. It sounds a bit like that in the debate here. I have several times in this chamber said that I do not like the phenomenon.
I can state that the conclusions and proposals I managed to obtain from the investigation that the previous government commissioned, before there were other investigations that were more prioritized in my area, concerned legislation that lay outside my area of responsibility, including much legislation under the Ministry of Social Affairs. I can also state that the proposals, questions, and problem formulations that have been raised in this debate so far also concern legislation and issues far outside the Civil Minister's area of responsibility.
I can say, however, just to touch upon what Peder Björk mentioned, that substandard properties are naturally a huge problem regardless of who lives in them. There is, of course, legislation in the area that protects tenants from substandard housing, but it does not fall under my responsibility.
We have now introduced or intend to introduce municipal right of first refusal for properties. It is a measure that could be part of the solution to the problem. We have also at the Ministry of Social Affairs worked on a homelessness strategy to counteract homelessness. I think that should also be taken into the debate. We have also succeeded in shifting the migration policy and reducing the migration flows. We have a new Settlement Act which also means that the need to offer housing in other municipalities will decrease with the new migration policy. We know that the phenomenon has been greatest precisely among newly arrived people.
During the three months that now remain of the mandate period, no new investigations – as that was one of the questions in the interpellation – will be initiated in this area. Much has, however, been done to create the conditions to reduce the phenomenon.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer, which I am, however, quite upset by.
The Minister initially states that he does not like this phenomenon at all. Obviously, however, he does not dislike it enough to prioritize actually doing something about it.
He says that there were more prioritized investigations in his area. He might have been able to prioritize this investigation instead of having an investigation on the merger of municipalities, something the Council of State seems to be very busy with. I could have told him what the conclusion of that investigation would be, and then those resources could have been used to seriously tackle this problem – which affects only the skin of the people who are affected.
Peder Björk has explained this and given a picture of what it is about. But it does not seem to be bad enough.
The Minister also stands here and says that this will decrease – he also said that in the response to the interpellation – and that it would only be about newcomers. The Minister would have known that it does not [happen] if he had actually familiarized himself with the statistics and the knowledge we have anyway. It is not the case that if one simply reduces the number of newcomers, this phenomenon will disappear.
I have met many municipal politicians who describe a sense of resignation but also a lack of trust in the government when it does not take the issue seriously – in fact, also mistrust. They have become politically engaged because they want to do what is best for all their municipal residents. Now they have to face the consequences of decisions that other municipalities make. This leads to frustration, and I truly understand that frustration.
This risks pitting person against person and municipality against municipality. It is a dangerous development. It is a development that does not benefit a society that is supposed to hold together – which I believe is the absolute best for all of us and for our common development.
Welfare and our welfare state are built on the fact that we stick together, not try to get rid of responsibility to someone else. Then we, including the municipalities, must be able to make demands on the state. This cannot be solved by individual municipalities. It is completely obvious. National leadership is required. Clearer rules are required. Better follow-up is required. Above all, a government that sees the problem and is prepared to act is required.
It is not enough to turn a blind eye to such an obvious and major problem for a group of people, even if this government might be discounting them – they are not their voters. This is not about election results. This is about politics and what kind of state we want to live in.
Do we really think it is okay that people should have to be dumped? That is what I want an answer to from the Minister, preferably in this debate.
Peder Björk (S)
Madam Speaker! In every debate we have had with Minister Slottner regarding social dumping, the Minister chooses to downplay the issue – every single time! I do not know if it is because the Minister does not truly see the problem or because the Minister does not want to see the problem. I actually do not know, Madam Speaker, which would be worse.
I believe that the Minister should contact Fagersta municipality. Fagersta municipality has since 2021 received 600 people – yes, Madam Speaker heard correctly: 600 people! – who have been forced to move to Fagersta municipality against their will. It is one of all the municipalities, Madam Speaker, where we know that this social dumping occurs.
Then I think it is both remarkable and irresponsible of the Minister to both in the answer to this interpellation and in previous interpellation debates downplay and nonchalantly dismiss the problem and refer to it as not existing, that this is not taking place. Tell that to the 600 people who have been forced to move to Fagersta municipality over the last five years!
This is an issue that the Minister is responsible for in the government, and the Minister does not even want to admit that the problem exists. I think, Madam Speaker, that it is shameful.
The problem arises, naturally, because some municipalities do not want to take this responsibility, but it also actually arises because this government allows property owners to year after year refrain from maintaining their properties and then have such poor properties that no one else wants to live there except for the people who are forced to move there by their home municipality. That is the reality we actually live in. This is not a reality that we Social Democrats will accept, and we are absolutely not satisfied with the Minister's answer.
It is not enough to state that the problem exists, which the Minister does not even do. But if the Minister were to do so, there are actually measures to be taken. We Social Democrats have shown that society can be tougher on property owners who systematically neglect their properties. We have presented several proposals where we show how the municipalities can be given better opportunities to intervene. We want to see strengthened sanctions against property owners who repeatedly show that they break the rules and do not maintain their houses.
We want to make it easier to compulsorily manage the properties where people are forced to live under unacceptable conditions. Ultimately, we Social Democrats want society to step in and say: "Enough is enough. Now we are demolishing the properties." Then we would address the problem of social dumping.
Does the government stand by its view that social dumping is not a problem in today's Sweden?
Civilministern Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! It is relatively difficult to hold to positions that one has never had. It becomes difficult to answer yes or no to that question.
I have said this several times in connection with a dozen debates and interpellations on exactly the same subject during the mandate period. This was probably the first interpellation I received as a minister. I have said several times that the problem occurs, but we do not know exactly to what extent. It is not the case that there is a clean and completely objective definition of the problem. And it is not entirely easy to know when it is a case of social dumping or not.
Nevertheless, I have said that the problem occurs, and I do not like the phenomenon. This I have said. But it is not possible to answer either yes or no to the question.
I have also never said that the problem only concerns newcomers. I said in my answer that it is common for this to affect immigrants, newcomers, or those who have been here for a while. After two years, when the right to housing has expired and one does not have the right to remain in a residence, the phenomenon can arise. Of course, it is such that if asylum migration to Sweden decreases, the general pressure on the social services also decreases. Accordingly, we can assume that this phenomenon also decreases.
We should not underestimate the importance of fewer municipalities in Sweden. It would help a lot, because it would make municipalities more robust. Then residents would not need to move around between municipalities, but a common social services administration can share the burden in a different way. I absolutely believe that fewer municipalities would be a way to reduce the negative consequences.
I have made many municipal visits during my time as minister. Above all, I have met many municipal representatives. I have met representatives for the majority of the municipalities, and the question has come up a few times. Fagersta is one of the municipalities that I visited in the autumn during a visit to Västmanland. Representatives for Fagersta municipality raised the question then. There has also been some other municipality that has also raised the question.
If the problem had been as pressing as it has been presented in this debate, I can promise that the issue would have come up more often when I meet municipal leaderships around Sweden at the official level and at the political level.
Now Peder Björk mentioned 2021. That was when the investigation was commissioned, I believe. We can still assume that this was a phenomenon that was ongoing even during the Social Democrats' eight years in power. An investigation was commissioned shortly before the election that did not have time to be completed before the election. One can wonder how genuine and heartfelt the commitment actually was during these eight years.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! The Minister has read out his answer himself: ”It has not emerged that it is being used in any significant extent at the moment.” The Minister has read it out.
It is clear that we are not interpreting anything, but it is exactly as the Minister says – it is not a major problem. I can promise the Minister that if he had done what was desirable for a Minister for Local Government who is responsible for the municipalities in Sweden, visited the municipalities rather than inviting municipal representatives to the Palace, the Minister would have learned more about the challenges the municipalities face.
If the representatives are sitting together with a group of other people, perhaps these problems are not the first things that come up. I understand that. Fagersta municipality knows that this issue must be raised constantly because the government does not seem to take the issue seriously. Imagine if the minister had traveled around, except for some small election campaign trip now at the end – but this issue does not seem to be in focus.
The Minister may laugh as much as he wants. This is a serious issue. The reason the question has been debated so many times is therefore that it concerns a serious and grave problem. It is not sufficient to refer to someone else. A Minister is, of course, responsible for all the decisions made in the government.
This is not sufficient, and it will be failed for this question now that the mandate period is almost over. I hope that someone else is given responsibility for the question in the future.
Peder Björk (S)
Madam Speaker! Unlike this government, the Social Democratic government did quite a lot in this area. That government saw the problem for real. That government had Statskontoret conduct a large survey on the prevalence of the problem. The Social Democratic government invited municipal representatives to round-table discussions. The Social Democratic government also gave a coordination mandate to one of the county administrative boards to coordinate the work across the entire country. Towards the end of the mandate period, they appointed the large, broad inquiry, which the current Minister for Civil Affairs scrapped on the first day of the job.
This says something about the will, the commitment, and the prioritization between an SD government and a social democratic government.
Madam Speaker! Let me conclude where the debate began. Social dumping is ultimately about people's right to a dignified life. No human being should have to choose between staying in a municipality without support or moving to a residence that no one else would accept. No human being should be used to solve a municipality's budget problems. No property owner should be able to build their business idea on exploiting people in vulnerable situations.
We Social Democrats, unlike the government and the SD government, want order and tidiness. We want to counter social dumping. We want to strengthen the municipalities' responsibility. But we also want to go after the actors who profit from the problems. Therefore, not only were more investigations needed, but political will and concrete measures were also needed. We Social Democrats will continue to push for that. It is time to take those who are subjected to social dumping seriously.
Civilministern Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! Peder Björk, in his final contribution, is trying to pull the wool over people's eyes and is deliberately lying about which government we have in this country. It is very clear. As Peder Björk very well knows, even though he tries to give the impression of something else, the Sverigedemokraterna are not in the government. Consequently, for entirely natural reasons, there is no SD government.
It is the government that appoints investigations. The Sweden Democrats have therefore had no influence whatsoever over whether this investigation should continue or not. It becomes difficult to accuse an SD government of having ended an investigation when that party is not part of the government. Yes, everyone listening to the debate hears how messy this is, Madam Speaker.
It is different from my answer. We do not have data that it occurs on any larger scale. We have, in fact, tasked the county administrative boards to look into it. But that it does not occur on any larger scale does not mean that it does not occur at all, as my opponents here said. I can think that it becomes a bit of wordplay and hair-splitting.
In conclusion: I think it is so funny that Eva Lindh has latched onto my travels and that many of the meetings with the municipalities have taken place at castles.
It is the case that the county governors often live in castles, including in Eva Lindh's hometown, Linköping. When I have met the county governors, I have very deliberately asked them to invite the municipalities. I will not say that it is to avoid them – that was a slip of the tongue – but rather that there is not enough time to visit all 290 municipalities during a parliamentary term. Otherwise, I would do nothing else. In that case, they are invited to a collective meeting at the castle, at the county administrative board's workplace. To be honest, I do not care particularly much about exactly where the meetings take place.
I have met with the municipalities collectively, together with the county governors, for some very good and far-reaching meetings. In addition, I have visited many municipalities where the GPS also shows the municipality name. This year, I have focused on visiting the constituencies. But all constituencies have a number of municipalities, and thus I also visit the municipalities.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.