He was born in 1980 in the Gelderland town Harderwijk and grew up in its neighborhood Tweelingstad.[4][5] His father worked as a building contractor. De Groot studied engineering and policy analysis at the Delft University of Technology.[5] He subsequently started working at infrastructure construction company Strukton Civiel, serving as a strategy and marketing manager between 2014 and his election to the House in 2021.[5][3]
Politics
De Groot became an active member of the Harderwijk-Hierden VVD in 2009 and was placed seventh on the VVD's party list in the 2010 municipal election in Harderwijk.[6][7] He did not receive a seat in the municipal council due to his party winning six seats. He was elected to the Harderwijk council in the next municipal election in 2014, when he was his party's third candidate.[8] De Groot served as vice caucus leader of the VVD until he became caucus leader in June 2017, succeeding Bert van Bijsteren.[6] De Groot was re-elected in 2018 as the VVD's second candidate and remained caucus leader.[9]
He ran for member of parliament in the 2021 general election, appearing 24th on the VVD's party list. He was sworn into the House of Representatives on 31 March, having received 1,093 preference votes.[10] He simultaneously vacated his seat in the Harderwijk municipal council.[2] In the House, De Groot became the VVD's spokesperson for infrastructure excluding aviation, shipping, and public transport, and he was on the Committees for Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality; for Infrastructure and Water Management; for the Interior; and for Public Expenditure. His specialties changed to housing and construction when the fourth Rutte cabinet was installed in January 2022.[4][11]
A motion by De Groot was carried to facilitate the transformation of holiday parks with few tourists into places of permanent residence in order to address a housing shortage in the Netherlands.[12] When Minister of Housing and Spatial Planning Hugo de Jonge presented a bill in early 2023 that would allow the minister to require municipalities to have at least 30% of new housing units be public housing, De Groot expressed criticism. He said that too much public housing was being constructed in cities such as Amsterdam and that more homes were required for the middle class. De Groot called the plans absurd and added that De Jonge was planning to roll out future deprived neighborhoods all over the country. He took back his words during a debate the following week after they had caused tension amongst the coalition parties.[13][14]
^ abcdJansen, Marco (1 March 2021). "Harderwijker op weg naar Den Haag" [Harderwijk resident on his way to The Hague]. Harderwijker Courant (in Dutch). Retrieved 10 May 2021.
^ ab"Peter de Groot begonnen als nieuwe fractievoorzitter VVD" [Peter de Groot has started as new VVD caucus leader]. Harderwijker Courant (in Dutch). 14 June 2017. p. 5.
^"Veel nieuwe gezichten op lijst VVD Harderwijk-Hierden" [Many new faces on the VVD's list for Harderwijk-Hierden]. De Stentor (in Dutch). 23 November 2013.
