Covid has changed everything - it's time for big ideas
Original image by Matt Palmer
Who could have predicted the events of the last few months? A new virus, hundreds of deaths. Many people ill in hospital. Who could have foreseen the economic impact with thousands losing their jobs and hundreds of businesses struggling?
Travel restrictions across Wales have meant that many people have been unable to visit loved ones and so many have missed out on that hard-earned summer break abroad because of quarantine rules.
Yet we know that there is potentially worse to come. Even when the virus starts to subside at some point in the future, it will take a great deal of time for demand to get anywhere close to where it was at the start of the year and who knows when travel will get back to normal. In the meantime many people are living with unemployment, wage cuts, debt and worry. Young people have been particularly hard hit and many will be wondering how they’ll manage over the next few years.
It’s true that both the Welsh and UK governments have take a robust approach to keeping the economy afloat and the Chancellor’s furlough scheme has been welcome. This action though is temporary. Next year we will return to business as usual, with a completely inadequate safety net in the form of a welfare state that wasn’t designed to cope with this kind of cataclysm. That’s when the real hardship will start.
It’s a time for big ideas. A time for exploring new and radical concepts that will remove the fear that is now so endemic in people’s lives. It’s time to look seriously at the idea of a Universal Basic Income.
There’s no doubt that it will take a lot of explaining. There will be many who claim that it will create a money for nothing culture; that it will be a disincentive for people to work. Be ready for attacks on the idea as a charter for the workshy, often from those who have inherited much of their wealth from Mum and Dad. There will also be those who are genuinely worried that the money that they pay in tax will go to those who will not work.
So let’s be clear, this is a way of giving all a stake in society; a method of providing a safety net that everyone can benefit from when times get hard. There are different models of course, but if you ensure that everybody over the age of eighteen gets a payment from the state every month then all have a stake in the system. Most people will still want to work to earn extra because for the majority, the basic level of income will be far less that they’re currently earning and they will need to top up their earnings to maintain their current lifestyle.
There will be questions of course about how all this would be paid for. It would certainly mean tax rises for very high earners as well as proper taxation for all those online retailers who are at present paying very little and have an unfair advantage over businesses that follow the traditional retail model. The cost cannot and should not fall on the vast majority of the people, as it did following the financial crash of 2008.
Difficult times call for innovative ideas. UBI is one of those ideas. There’s a lot of modelling to be done and a lot of persuading to do but the idea deserves an airing.
Carrying on as before is not an option for the vast majority. We owe it to them to offer better, fairer alternatives. Plugging the gap with furlough schemes is not a sustainable plan for the future.
More about the author
Carwyn Jones AS/MS - @AMCarwyn
Bridgend, Wales
Carwyn Jones is an experienced leader, advisor and presenter. He retired as First Minister of Wales in December 2018 after nine years in the role and eighteen consecutive years in government.
As First Minister he was responsible for a budget of some £16bn a year and led a government that introduced landmark legislation such as the Human Transplantation (Wales) Act and Well-Being of Future Generations Act.
He also led bids to bring investment into Wales and saw companies such as Aston Martin and CAF come to Wales to add to expansion by existing companies such as Airbus, GE and General Dynamics. In addition, he led the team that brought the Champions League Final to Wales as well as the Rugby Union and League World Cups and Ashes Tests.
An experienced presenter and speaker he has spoken at events at the European Parliament, European Commission, United States Congress, the United Nations and the Chicago Centre for Global Affairs.
He has secured positions in broadcasting and business since 2018 and will be stepping down from his parliamentary duties in March 2021.
Before entering politics he spent ten years as a barrister specialising in criminal, family and personal injury law and is now a Professor of Law at Aberystwyth University.
When time allows, he is a sport fanatic and likes to read and walk with his dog when he gets the chance.