A majority of MPs have asked the cabinet to make sure family members who care for their ill or elderly partners, children or parents are not hit financially when the welfare benefit system (bijstand) is reformed.

The government is planning to make welfare benefits dependant on household income. This means parents claiming welfare benefits who share their home with adult children with jobs or an elderly parent on a pension will lose all or part of their government support.
According to the Volkskrant, this will affect some 20,000 households.
But MPs are concerned this will also affect people who care more or less full time for family members who are ill or handicapped.
Junior social affairs minister Paul de Krom has already assured MPs this will not be the case, as long as the person being cared for officially needs at least 10 hours care a week.
Abroad
MPs are also unhappy that the minister plans to stop paying top-up welfare benefits to poor pensioners who spend more than eight weeks abroad a year.
At the moment, they can spend 13 weeks outside the Netherlands and still claim the equivalent of a full state pension.
The Dutch pension system is based on a 50-year residency rule. This means many immigrants or Dutch people who spent time abroad rely on top-up welfare benefits as well as their reduced state pension.