Universal basic income in the United Kingdom
Universal basic income in the United Kingdom has not been implemented. Interest in and support for universal basic income has increased substantially amongst the public and politicians.
Political parties in the UK that have a universal basic income as part of their policy platforms include: the Green Party of England and Wales, the Scottish National Party, and the Scottish Greens. Support for universal basic income was widespread amongst opposition politicians in 2020, including those in: Labour, the SNP, Liberal Democrats, and Plaid Cymru, many of whom were among the 170 MPs and Lords who signed a proposal calling on the government to introduce a universal basic income during the coronavirus pandemic.
A public poll by YouGov in 2020 found that in the view of coronavirus pandemic 51% of the public in the United Kingdom supported a universal basic income, with 24% unsupportive. A public petition on the UK government website that ran for six months from 16 March 2020 to 16 September 2020 calling for universal basic income during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom raised over 114,000 signatures.
History (from Thomas Paine to the year 2000)
Thomas Paine: Agrarian Justice
, an English-American philosopher and revolutionary, proposed a system whereby all citizens, when reaching adulthood, should be given an equal amount of money from the state. The idea was developed in Agrarian Justice, published 1797. The basic philosophical idea behind the proposal, explained in the book, was the contention that in the state of nature, "the earth, in its natural uncultivated state... was the common property of the human race". His contemporary and fellow pamphleteer, Thomas Spence, responded with a proposal that more closely fits the contemporary definition of basic income.Speenhamland
The Speenhamland system was a form of poverty relief in England at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. It started in the village of Speenhamland, but soon spread to most parts of the country. William Pitt the Younger tried to have the system implemented nationally but failed. Although it has one similarity to basic income, in that theoretically everyone was eligible, it was means-tested and it included work conditions and supervision that made it very different from basic income.1920s and 1930s
Even though basic income and related ideas had been proposed a few times before the 1920s, it was not until then that a social movement seems to have started around the idea. Valter Van Trier has described this movement, which started in United Kingdom, in his book Every One a King.The idea of basic income was revived prominently by Dennis Milner and his wife Mabel Milner in their pamphlet Scheme for a State Bonus: A rational method of solving the social problem published in 1918. Following this publication, the so-called "State Bonus League" was formed in July of the same year. The League pushed the idea inside the Labour Party, which dedicated several hearings at the National Congress in 1920 and 1922, but the idea was eventually rejected.
At the same time Major C.H. Douglas, a British engineer and social philosopher, developed a new economic philosophy which he labelled Social Credit. At the heart of the philosophy was a firm belief in the importance of individual freedom, but also that the monetary system had to be changed so that the market system could function properly. In short he combined monetary reform and basic income.
1940s
The Beveridge report, published in 1942, stated that social insurances should be the main system in society for economic security. Besides that the report also proposed a selective system for those without access to social insurances. Beveridge himself did not like means-testing and selectivism, because it created high marginal tax rates for the poor, but he nevertheless thought that it was a necessary complement. After the war the "Beveridge-model" became the guiding principle for the welfare state, both in Britain and internationally. Lady Juliet Rhys Williams proposed the "New Social Contract" as an alternative to the Beveridge Report. In short she proposed basic income in the form of a negative income tax, except that she also recommended a work test.1950s – 2000
In 1972 the Cabinet of Edward Heath put forward a proposal for a tax-credit scheme which resembled a citizen's income in some ways but did not cover the whole of the population. In 1979 child benefit which is a citizen's income for children in all but name was introduced.21st century debate and development
A system of universal basic income is supported by the Green Party of England and Wales, the Scottish National Party Scottish Greens, and the Scottish Socialist Party. For a period the Liberal Democrats also accepted it as official policy, but modified their support before members voted to adopt it as party policy in September 2020. In March 2023, a majority of members of the Liberal Democrats at the party's Spring Conference voted in favour of adopting a "Guaranteed Basic Income" instead of a universal basic income as the Liberal Democrats official policy.In January 2016, the sole MP of the Green Party of England and Wales, Caroline Lucas, tabled a motion in the British Parliament, calling on the Government to commission research into the effects of a universal basic income and examine its feasibility to replace the UK's existing social security system.
Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is said to be a supporter of universal basic income and on 16 February 2016 said that universal basic income is "an idea we want to look at". Writing in The New Statesman on 17 February, Labour MP Jonathan Reynolds argues in its favour, as a policy for coping with "inevitable but fundamental economic change," as an alternative to "the bewildering complexity of our welfare system" when "people move frequently into and out of work", and as a "platform from which might fulfil their potential". Labour Party MP, Clive Lewis, has also stated his support for universal basic income.
In March 2020, a combined total of over 170 opposition politicians from MPs and Lords, called for the UK government to implement a universal basic income during the coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom. However, the Conservative government and then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, both rejected the calls.
On 25 September 2020, the Liberal Democrats adopted at their party conference a policy of supporting UBI.
In mid-May 2021, after the 2021 Senedd election in which Welsh Labour won half the seats in the Welsh Parliament, Mark Drakeford, leader of Welsh Labour and First Minister of Wales, announced that a universal basic income scheme would be trialled in Wales. Plaid Cymru supported a Welsh pilot for a universal basic income in their manifesto going into the election and the Welsh Liberal Democrats also made an election commitment to support a trial, while the Welsh Conservatives rejected the idea. Recipients of the income would be given independent financial advice and support throughout the pilot who are "regularly reminded of their end point on the pilot so that appropriate plans can be made for their transition out of the pilot." As of June 2023, the pilot is ongoing with the final results expected to be thoroughly evaluated at the end of the trial.
In a poll of 2,184 adults in Great Britain in November 2021 by Savanta ComRes, 44% of respondents stated their support for a universal basic income, compared to 23% who stated that they oppose it.
Recent reports
In 2015 the London-based RSA launched its own proposal for Basic Income entitled Creative Citizens, Creative State. It advocated replacing a swathe of UK means-tested benefits with a single universal payment as a response to the changing landscape of work and an ageing population.In March 2019, the New Economics Foundation produced the report Nothing Personal: Replacing the personal tax allowance with a Weekly National Allowance. The report maintained that if the Government abolished the personal allowance of income tax and replaced it with a weekly cash payment of £48 a week it could lift 200,000 families out of poverty. The proposed policy swap would shift £8bn currently spent on tax allowances for the 35% highest income families to the remaining 65% of families. However, the report was critical of the notion of a universal basic income, ie, a guaranteed income for all citizens.
Approximately a week after the report by the NEF, the think tank Compass published a report written by economists Stewart Lansley and Howard Reed. Entitled Basic Income for All: From Desirability to Feasibility it suggested the government could make tax-free payments of £60 to every adult, £175 for those over 65 and £40 for each child under 18, regardless of other income. This would be designed to cut rising levels of poverty and inequality across the United Kingdom. Their report suggested the cost of reworking the tax and benefits system would be £28bn, less than the aggregate cuts to benefits since 2010 and the changes would return social security spending back to the level of a decade ago to help cover the costs of the UBI. Lansley and Reed followed up this report with a second in 2019, that took a closer look at the financial possibilities of universal basic income in the UK. In Basic Income for All: From Desirability to Feasibility, Lansley and Reed claim that "a meaningful basic income of, for example, over £10,000 per year could be paid to a family of four. Sums at this level, paid without condition, would significantly improve the living standards and life chances of millions of people and... are affordable."
In May 2019, a report by Professor Guy Standing, commissioned by the Progressive Economic Forum and forwarded to John McDonnell suggested different models for piloting basic income. Standing's report cites a "perfect storm" of factors that lead to the need for a basic income: Broad ethical justifications for basic income, which Standing cites as "social justice, security, freedom and solidarity" are now working in combination with urgent socio-economic demands. "A growing proportion of people," the report states, "are in the precariat'', living bits-and-pieces lives, relying on low wages and incomes that are increasingly volatile and unpredictable and on inadequate and uncertain benefits in times of loss of earnings power." Echoing William Beveridge's 1942 report suggesting the need for a Welfare State in the UK, Standing states there are eight modern giants, stretching form inequality, debt through to neo-fascism, that basic income could help tackle. The report is also highly critical of current UK welfare schemes, mainly Universal Credit, which he states are unfair for large families, have high administrative costs and limit personal freedom.
The report deals with the most common objections to a basic income. To the objection that basic income is not affordable, Professor Standing said there are 1,156 tax reliefs in the UK at the moment and if they were scrapped that would pay for a basic income. "If we phased out those tax reliefs the total revenue foregone by the Treasury from tax reliefs is £420bn per year and that's their own estimates, not mine," he added. He also suggests "a more general Commons Permanent Fund, in which a national investment fund would be built mainly from levies on commercial intrusions into the commons, boosted by contributions from a land-value tax, eco taxes, digital information levies and several others."
In July 2022, data was published from polling by YouGov that suggested that a plurality of British people support a universal basic income.
In November 2023, The Trussell Trust calculated that a single adult in the UK in 2023 needs at least £29,500 a year to have an acceptable standard of living, up from £25,000 in 2022. Two partners with two children would need £50,000, compared to £44,500 in 2022. 29% of the UK population – which works out to 19.2 million people – belong to households that bring in below the minimum standard.