Ten reasons to vote SP

We will put a stop to increases in scale and to 'market working' and bring health care provision back to the neighbourhoods. Large scale nursing- and old people's homes will be replaced by small-scale, more personal provision at the local level. Hospitals, medical centres and other health care facilities will be scaled down and made more easily reachable. With neighbourhood health centres, polyclinics and consultation bureaus for young and old, we will bring health care closer to home.

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We will hugely increase investment in education, because education is the entry point to a better future. Smaller schools, smaller classes, more practically oriented programmes of study and good, fulfilling placements and internships can greatly increase the quality of technical education and reduce the dropout rate. Noone should leave school without qualifications. We will provide school books in secondary education free-of-charge. Top-up grants for students will be increased. We will vigorously tackle the bureaucracy and the passion for regulation of the authorities and school management bodies. We will improve the rewards for teaching and haul the school managers themselves up before the class. We want to see an end to the effective segregation that has resulted in ethnically-divided 'white' and 'black' schools. Schools will be obliged to accept any child whose parents agree to respect the principles on which the school is based. close

We will scrap the 'no-claim' system in health care, under which people who do not need to seek treatment pay lower premiums. This is a scandalous system which forces the long-term sick, disabled people and the elderly to pay more so that healthy people can be given a reduction! If we do this we will be able to reduce the health care insurance premium by 90 euros for everyone. We will also abolish the personal contribution which must be paid when care is needed in the patient's own home. Premiums should be based on ability to pay, which is clearly fairer. We will put a stop to 'market working', to bureaucratisation and to the mania for control now evident in health care. This will save a great deal of misery and annoyance... and a great deal of money! Health insurers should not be taking the place of doctors when it comes to making decisions. And all socially beneficial health care should be covered, including dentistry, physiotherapy, primary psychiatric care, transport costs for patients who must visit a hospital or clinic on a regular basis, and all recognised medicines. close

The state retirement pension (AOW) will be index-linked. People dependent on the AOW or a small supplementary pension will see their tax allowances increased. To combat poverty amongst old people whose contribution record is insufficient to qualify for a full pension, top up payments will be available in cases of demonstrable need. Pensionable age will remain at 65. People who wish to continue working after their 65th birthday will have the same rights and duties as other workers. Early retirement will remain possible. Those doing heavy work will acquire pension rights after forty years in employment. We will increase investment in housing adapted for old people and take more account, in the allocation of housing, of the need for voluntary care. We will make it easier to build on one's own property in order to facilitate the provision of care.

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We will ensure that more affordable housing is built for both purchase and let through the investment of housing corporations' resources and by tackling speculation in land and housing. We will guarantee mortgage relief and limit it to a maximum of 350,000 euros and a maximum tax relief level of 42%. In this way we will end uncertainty for homeowners and place a limit on the unreasonably large advantage enjoyed by people on the highest incomes. Rental accommodation must be maintained by its owners in a better condition and no longer allowed to be sold. The average rent increase must not be greater than the overall rate of inflation. We will restore recent reductions in rent subsidies and end plans to criminalise squatting. Residents should enjoy more rights of participation. close

By raising the minimum income by 10%, increasing child benefit for families on low incomes and widening the range of possibilities for local authorities to offer aid, we will improve the situation of the more than 400,000 children currently growing up in poverty right here in our own country. The unreasonable qualification criteria introduced during the last few years, by which people in receipt of disability benefits are reassessed will be abolished and people who have been subjected to them will be able to apply for a new, fair assessment. Social security will be restored rather than subjected to plunder, including for small businesspeople. For these we will introduce a standard policy package insuring them against an inability to work and offering broad coverage and an obligation to providers to accept applicants who fulfil standard conditions. close

When things are going well in the neighbourhoods, then they're generally going well for the people that live in them. In a well-balanced neighbourhood, young and old, the well-off and the less well-off, those with a good level of education and the less well-educated, indigenous people and immigrants live happily side-by-side. Neighbourhoods, small towns and villages have a right to satisfactory services, a range of shops and public transport. Each neighbourhood should have a health centre which can be reached at any time, and good provision for old people. Youth workers and community centres must be restored. We will come down hard on those who cause unnecessary nuisance to others. With more community police officers and better-maintained localities, support for people bringing up children, education and out-of-school activities, we will ensure safer and more attractive neighbourhoods.

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We believe that our agriculture is of the greatest importance. Farmers grow our food and take care of the maintenance and management of the landscape. For these reasons they deserve more support. We are for a secure supply of safe, wholesome food and more organic and sustainable agriculture. Industrial agriculture will be suppressed in favour of organic, humane husbandry. In order to encourage high standards of animal welfare the national constitution should be amended to place a duty of animal care on the government. Keeping animals for fur production will be banned, as will hunting for 'pleasure', while incentives will be provided for the development of alternatives to testing of products on animals. Transport of animals will be strictly controlled. Investment in renewable energy, including wind- and solar power and other clean and sustainable energy sources is, in our view, much to be preferred to a continued reliance on fossil fuels or speculating on dangerous nuclear power.

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The continuing privatisation and liberalisation of public services (such as public transport and the energy sector) has not led to more affordable tariffs or better provision. Rail services must, therefore, be brought back under state control. By increasing investment, we will make public transport attractive to a broader public. We will scrap the compulsory putting out to tender of bus and train services and stop the privatisation of publicly-owned bus companies. By providing more and better public transport we will ease pressure on roads, reduce traffic jams and spare the environment. The state should monitor the prices charged by, and and profits of, energy corporations in order to prevent swingeing price rises. close

In 2005, two-thirds of the Dutch population said 'no' to the European constitution and the coming of a European superstate. They thereby rejected the further transfer of control to the European Union, demanding a greater chance to manage their own affairs in their own country. By means of clear rules governing the migration of labour within the EU, we can prevent people from eastern Europe being brought to the Netherlands to do underpaid, dangerous work by employers who evade the statutory requirements established by our national system of collective work agreements.

We are against NATO's development into a world-wide operating intervention force under the leadership of the United States. It would be much better to have a political-military organisation which really did act in as broad a fashion as possible in the service of a safer and fairer world. In order to avoid being dragged into a hopeless war, we should as quickly as possible end our military involvement in Afghanistan.

The Netherlands can help to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict by recognising the right of the Palestinian people to their own independent, viable state, as well as Israel's right to safe and recognised borders.

The United Nations should, on a world-wide scale, play a more important role in the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflicts. We want to do more to combat poverty, oppression and exploitation in the world, with increased development aid, debt annulation, fair trade and fair social policies. close