With nine days to go before the Dutch general election on October 29, here is a round up of the latest election news.

Jetten, Timmermans clash over healthcare

The second big televised debate of the election campaign led to a clash between D66 leader Rob Jetten and GroenLinks-PvdA campaign chief Frans Timmermans about the basic health insurance package.

Timmermans accused Jetten of lying about D66’s plans to freeze the basic package when he said that, as far as he was concerned, there would still be room to include new drugs, such as medicines to treat cancer.

But Timmermans said this is not what the D66 submission to the CPB (which analyses the financial implications of the party plans) states. “You are locking in the basic package,” he said. “Nothing can be added in. And that is what it says, black on white.”

Jetten, for his part, went on to accuse the Labour leader of misleading the public about his plans for building new homes and upping spending on defence.

Action needed to help foreign workers

During the debate, all the parties agreed that something must be done to end the way foreign workers in low-paid, low-skilled jobs are being exploited.

SP leader Jimmy Dijk accused the other parties of doing nothing for years, to which VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz said that her party had thought the market would solve the problem.

Like the Christian Democrats and far-right JA21, the VVD hopes that increased automation will reduce the need to bring in cheap foreign workers for the meat-processing and logistics industries.

JA21 went as far as to say that the free movement of people within the EU should be curtailed to reduce the number of EU nationals coming to work in the Netherlands. That would require changes to EU treaties and take years.