Making tomorrow a better place
Original image by Khamkhor
Sophie Howe is the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales; her role is to make tomorrow in Wales a better place and ensure that what politicians do now doesn’t hurt the population of the future. We are unique here in having legislation - the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 [1] - which ensures the Senedd and public bodies think about the long-term impact of their decisions. On May 13th of this year, she came out in favour of a Universal Basic Income following the publication of the results of a research study of the Finnish 2 year old pilot [2]. The study found that people were happier, had greater trust in others and higher level of confidence in the future. They also reported better cognitive functioning and the summary was that UBI could alleviate stress in a time of uncertainty.
Uncertainty. Nothing could be more uncertain than what will happen as we emerge from Covid 19, and potentially enter a further lockdown phase. Many people have lost their jobs, there has been an exponential increase in food bank useage and the surge of people applying for Universal Credit and needing to wait for 5 weeks has had indescribable stress levels on individuals. This is on top of the likelihood that there will be a recession and an impact on our economy and physical well being.
UBI is not a silver bullet; there are issues such as housing costs and regional differences, but it starts us on a road of thinking about a more equal society. Outside of Covid 19, the fact that Universal Basic Income on its own will provide people with the dignity of not suffering from food poverty must be enough for us to have a serious look at it. But now with such a high degree of uncertainty as we emerge from this crisis, we must do this urgently.
UBI is a bit like Marmite; you either love it or you hate it. When I first heard about it 7 years ago, I thought it was a ridiculous idea. But I changed my mind. There are three reasons why I didn’t like it; the first is that it would not be fair that everyone receives it, from the millionaire to the person claiming benefits. We currently have a number of benefits which do this - the state pension, the winter fuel allowance and the television license payment. Additionally, even millionaires can access our public health and education systems. The second one is that it would make people lazy and they would not want to seek work as they are able to receive “free” money. This is a good one, and my response back is, even in work, there are judgements about those who work hard and those who do not.
The third reason is that it is not affordable, and this does need unpacking. We still need to have additional payments to those who are vulnerable so that people with particular needs are living safe and dignified lives. I would encourage people to review the modelling done by such people as the RSA and Compass. Covid 19 is something we need to wait and see how the economy balances, but if you needed convincing that things can be done that are not costed out, we have seen the furlough scheme, with the government covering 80% of the salaries of 7.5 million workers.
What’s stopping this scheme being looked at is political will. For me, if this stops people going to food banks, that’s enough.
More about the author
Jane Dodds - @DoddsJane
Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales
Born in North Wales in to a Welsh speaking family and lives in mid-Wales.
Jane is child protection social worker and has been leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats since 2017.
She fought the seats of Montgomeryshire in the General Election in 2015 and 2017, was briefly a Member of Parliament for Brecon and Radnorshire in 2019, and is a convert to Universal Basic Income.