The new coalition’s healthcare plans took central stage in Wednesday’s debate on the government agreement, with opposition parties accusing the alliance of making billions of euros in cuts in healthcare spending.

But prime minister Mark Rutte dismissed the claims, and Gert Jan Segers, leader of minor coalition party ChristenUnie, told MPs that spending on healthcare will actually increase by €9bn in the short term.

The perceived cuts come from projections about general healthcare spending – forecast to rise from €89bn in 2022 to €95bn by 2026, largely due to the ageing population. The coalition parties want to limit the projected increase by €782m in 2026, rising to €4.5bn by 2052.

The new government’s plans: what you need to know

‘What I find difficult is this repetition of “there will be cuts, there will be cuts”,’ Segers said, adding that he is happy to look at areas where savings can be made, such as bureaucracy and red tape.

Several opposition parties also protested at the new government’s decision to declare some failed asylum seekers ‘undesirable’, saying this is a backdoor way of making it a crime to be undocumented, or illegal.

The new agreement states that more must be done to tackle the problem of asylum seekers from safe third countries who are using the system to access the Netherlands. To this end, it includes the possibility that they be given a ‘declaration of undesirability’, something which is currently applied to people considered to be a danger to the Netherlands

This, said GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver, means that being illegal in the Netherlands will then be considered a crime.

However, D66 leader Sigrid Kaag disagreed. ‘The criminalisation of illegality is a generic measure,’ she said. ‘This would be for one person.’