Income and social security

• Unemployment benefit (WW) will be cut from two years to one year.

• The state pension age will continue to rise in line with life expectancy.

• Reforms are planned to benefits for people who are unable to work through illness or disability.

• The various types of child benefit will be merged into a single system.

Education

• The previous government’s plan to check which university courses can be taught in English will be abandoned, but there will be limits on the number of foreign students taking popular courses.

• €1.5 billion will be allocated for additional investment in education.

• Payment during internships will be anchored in law.

Mobility

• Lelystad Airport will open for commercial flights and as a defence ministry base. Initially airlines will be limited to 10,000 take offs and landings a year.

• Noise from night flights to and from Schiphol Airport must be reduced by 50% by 2030. Take-offs and landings will be limited to 478,000 a year.

• Money will be made available to restart 17 infrastructure projects halted by a lack of funding.

• Fuel taxes will remain unchanged and the cabinet will look into basing car tax on size rather than weight.

• Fatbikes will become a separate vehicle category, paving the way for a minimum age and compulsory helmets. Councils will also be able to introduce fatbike-free zones.

Defence

• Defence spending will be increased to reach the new Nato norm of 3.5% of GDP by 2035.

• The armed forces will be expanded to 122,000 personnel and, if that cannot be achieved through recruitment drives, the cabinet may partly reintroduce military service.

• Support for Ukraine will reach €3.4 billion a year from 2027.

Foreign affairs

• The Netherlands must once again have a leading role in Europe and some cuts to the diplomatic network will be reversed.

• More money will be made available for development aid, reversing some of the cuts introduced by the previous cabinet.

Housing

• Solving the housing shortage is a top priority, with a target of 30% social housing and 25% affordable owner-occupier homes in new developments.

• No change to the current mortgage interest tax relief rules.

• New social housing tenants will face assets and income checks, and all social housing tenants will face an annual income check.

• It will become easier to split and extend existing properties to create more homes, and the building of studios for young people will be discouraged.

• Owners of houses on holiday parks will be allowed to live in them permanently.

• It will become easier for housing corporations to sell social housing so they can invest in new developments.

Climate and the environment

• €20 billion will be allocated to tackle the nitrogen pollution problem, and farms will be forced to reduce in size if they fail to meet sector targets.

• Support will be available for farmers who want to relocate or close their farms. Red diesel, the tax-free fuel for farmers, will be scrapped.

Healthcare

• The healthcare own-risk element will rise to €460, but patients will not have to pay more than €150 at one time.

• Healthcare benefits will increase for people on low incomes.

• People requiring some home care services, such as cleaning, will no longer be funded if they have sufficient assets to pay themselves.

• Medicines available over the counter will no longer be covered by health insurance.

• A new sugar tax will be introduced.

• Free school fruit will be provided for primary and secondary school pupils.

Refugees and immigration

• The law requiring all local authorities to provide housing for a set number of refugees will remain in place.

• The cabinet will press ahead with asylum restrictions introduced by the outgoing government, including a two-tier system and tougher rules on family reunification.

• There will be no ban on giving refugees priority in social housing.

• Efforts will be made to make sure asylum seekers with a good chance of winning residency start language lessons and work more quickly and that they receive proper trauma care if necessary.

• Foreign nationals going through the naturalisation procedure to become Dutch will still be required to give up their original nationality.

• Plans to require 10 year residency to apply for Dutch nationality have been dropped, and refugees will be able to apply after six years.

Other

• VAT on plants and flowers will rise from 9% to 21% in 2028.

• Clare’s Law will be introduced, allowing people, usually women, to check whether a partner has a history of violence.

• No change to the Regulated marijuana experiment.

• The minimum age for sex workers will rise from 18 to 21.

• The minimum age to buy tobacco products will rise from 18 to 21.

• All advertising for online gambling will be banned.

• The government will seek EU-level talks on banning social media use for under-15s.

More to follow