A new government with significant majority now holds power in Westminster. Starmer claims to have grand visions for a new Britain, but to date he has only carried forward the myopic legacy to welfare he inherited. His main intervention so far has been to take away winter fuel subsidies from pensioners and retain the two-child benefit cap. Even the recent budget of ‘giveaways’, including a boost to universal credit and public spending, will lead to net funding cuts for many by 2029.
To say we could do better would only be re-stating the obvious. We need to stop tinkering at the edges and move towards more radical reform.
Years of disinvestment, austerity and neoliberal approaches to social security have left the UK social policy system a hollowed-out shell. Real government spending per person was lower in the era of the pandemic than it was in 2010. Austerity has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. Millions experience destitution every day, unable to feed themselves or their family or heat their homes. Rather than offering a way out, our under-resourced and penalising system ensures that vulnerable people experience stigma and shame as recipients of state welfare as well as the indignities of poverty.
It’s no surprise then that going into the 2024 national election, the cost of living crisis was the most pressing issue for citizens, followed by the sorry state of the NHS. Labour won this election off the back of a call to ‘fix the foundations’, including promises to build new homes, improve transport, cut NHS waiting times, increase minimum wage, and invest in green energy, among other interventions. None of these offer a radical vision of fixing the broken welfare system. Neither do they challenge the systems and practices that got us here in the first place.
The government doesn’t have to go back to the drawing board. Well thought out alternatives that offer real solutions to this polycrisis already exist. Foremost among these are the twin ideas of universal basic income (UBI) and universal basic services (UBS).
UBI and UBS: two halves of a whole
UBI and UBS offer a chance to revolutionise welfare in the UK. The first sees unconditional cash payments made to all people, so that they have the resources to meet their needs and enjoy a minimum standard of dignified life, as they deem fit. The second ensures people have access to the essential services they need to live good lives while lowering an individual’s cost of living, stretching that basic income even further.
Both ideas share the common aspiration of enabling everyone to meet their needs and live dignified and secure lives. Yet they are often pitched as mutually exclusive, if not antithetical, on grounds of ideology, efficiency or political and fiscal ‘realism’.
Only a robust policy mix, tailored to national context, can meet the varied and uncertain needs of our times
This feature, the third in a series discussing radical welfare reform in the heart of neoliberalism, fundamentally rejects this artificial binary. It assumes the need for both unconditional cash and rejuvenated public services as part of an even wider package of public system reform. Only a robust policy mix, tailored to national context, can meet the varied and uncertain needs of our times.
Based on that assumption, we asked our contributors to reflect on how we get that policy mix right. The five articles in this feature offer ways to radically rethink this question and offer some suggestions on process, rather than detailing out fully formed proposals that could be implemented off the shelf (although they’ve linked to some).
Written by scholars and activists from different sectors, together we aim to start a conversation that moves beyond popular but false dichotomies and limited political imagination. We aspire for a vision of a future-ready, fit-for-purpose welfare architecture, with rock solid foundations for generations to come. We designed this feature to intentionally talk past ‘the debate over UBI or UBS’ so that it can better explore their complementarity and synergy within a reformed system.
The contributions
The five articles showcased here all reflect on what we need to consider, as a polity, when imagining, designing and implementing an alternative to our current welfare model. They explore the complementarity of UBI and UBS proposals and their place within an overall system. Nobody tries to declare one superior over the other, because that debate has been done (to death) and it has always been found wanting.
Matthew Johnson, Elliot Johnson and Kate Pickett present a model of a New Beveridge-style programme for government. All experts on public health and welfare, their proposal moves beyond fiddling with small policy ideas to a more holistic reimagination of social policy. They outline the impacts that this sort of programme, which includes UBI and UBS together, can have particularly on the public’s mental and physiological health.
Cleo Goodman continues that line of thinking by exploring what we actually mean by basic, and asking what combination of public offerings could help someone achieve their basic needs. Cleo, the co-founder of the Basic Income Conversation, argues passionately against waiting for a ‘perfect’ arrangement and insists that we must re-orient our economic and government system away from making some people rich and toward ensuring a life of basic dignity for all.
Ruth Boyle and David Eyre update us on the first national policy initiative to effect this shift: Scotland’s proposed minimum income guarantee. The envisioned MIG will be a tailored and targeted programme that will combine elements of cash transfers with investments in public services to provide a minimum standard of life to all. Ruth and David highlight not just the importance of a programme like this, but also how it requires commitment and coordination from all parts of government, business and society.
Nicholas Langridge and Milena Büchs bring an ecological perspective to the conversation. Both scholars on degrowth and social policy, they discuss UBI and UBS’s role in building a sustainable welfare system. They say that because these ideas focus on redistributing wealth, satisfying human needs, and staying in alignment with planetary boundaries, they could do what growth-based welfare models do not: actively help humans live into the future without breaking the planet.
David Westlake discusses not just what policy mix we can aspire to, but how to try and answer that question. An expert in children’s social care and Co-PI of the Welsh Basic Income for Care Leavers Pilot, he highlights how evidence on both cash- and service-based interventions is prone to interpretation (and partisan thinking). Based in this cautionary note, he explains just how much more work is needed to determine this ‘optimal mix’ of policy.
We are at a pivotal moment in history. Ecological destruction looms and inequality is the highest it has been since the second world war. Taking power after 14 years of austerity is a once in a generation opportunity for Labour to fundamentally revamp how the state thinks of its people and prepares for an uncertain future. This feature is one attempt to make the government realise it.
Explore the rest of the series
This series looks at the specific challenges that campaigners face when arguing for universal basic income in highly individualised and neoliberal contexts like the United States and the United Kingdom, and how they work to overcome them.
Part 1 | Getting on with it
- UBI in the US ‘not just an idea’ – it’s achievable
Shafeka Hasash, Economic Security Project - 'Hope goes a long way': BI as a lifeline for ex-prisoners
Kevin Scott, Community Spring - Could a guaranteed income pave the way for racial justice?
Rachel Pyon, Deon Hodrick and Matthew Harvey, Equity and Transformation - Direct cash transfers 'could halve child poverty' in Oregon
Antonio Gisbert, Oregon Rebate - What can end the suffering of Black mothers and children in the US?
Zea Malawa, University of California, Berkeley Public Health
Part 2 | Widening the politically possible
- UBI could mean justice for everyone. How do we get there?
Philippe Van Parijs, UCLouvain - Basic income ‘won’t stop people working’: lessons from Canada
Ben Earle and Sheila Regehr, Basic Income Canada Network - Basic income could put food banks out of business
David Beck, University of Salford and UBILab Food - Basic income: why we need to start talking about money
Cleo Goodman, Autonomy and the Basic Income Conversation - Can cities do what national governments won’t on basic income?
Leandro Ferreira, Brazilian Basic Income Network
Part 3 | Getting the policy mix right
- It's time for a welfare revolution in the UK
Vibhor Mathur, University of Bath - Put the whole government to work rebuilding Britain
Matthew Johnson, Elliot Johnson and Kate Pickett, Northumbria University and University of York - Does Labour dare to renew the welfare state?
Cleo Goodman, Autonomy - Will Scotland be the first to guarantee a minimum income?
Ruth Boyle and David Eyre, Poverty Alliance - Sustainable welfare for a sustainable planet
Nicholas Langridge and Milena Büchs, University of Bath and University of Leeds - From dogma to data: a centrist case for pragmatic welfare reform
David Westlake, Cardiff University
