Coronavirus has lifted the lid on the prevalence of financial insecurity in this UK. For many, there is no safety net in place for times of crisis. So, now more than ever, we need progressive, forward-thinking solutions to help people cope.
That’s why I, along with a group of cross-party MPs, have been calling on the Chancellor to implement an Emergency Universal Basic Income. Before the crisis, I advocated for the launch of local pilots to explore the idea. Now, I realise that we to act nationally to protect our most economically vulnerable.
Low-paid workers, such as those in the gig economy, often rely solely on their monthly wage. Many freelancers, as well as those with part-time jobs or on zero-hours contracts, live hand to mouth, without back-up provisions should they suddenly not be able to work.
Implementing a regular, unconditional income to everyone in the UK is a hand up to the most hard-working and economically vulnerable in society. It is a message to all our citizens that says loud and clear: we appreciate your hard work we will help you and your family in this time of crisis.
A set income, that would act as a safeguard for many is the most efficient and compassionate way for this Government to put millions of minds at rest instantly.
Anxiety around where your next meal is coming from should be the least of people’s worries. When we as a nation are undergoing such a crisis, no-one should have to face a choice between isolating to protect their health and putting food on the table for their children.
The Government have tried to build a patchwork of support provisions for people in various different situations. But under their approach, some will have to wait for universal credit applications, others must wait until June for a different payment. Too many people will fall through the net and get no support at all.
A Universal Basic Income is surely a better, catch-all safety net – and it’s not too late to introduce it. The Spanish Government has just become the first country in Europe to announce a rollout of a Universal Basic Income. As the Coronavirus crisis deepens here, and looks as though it will go on into the year, it is becoming clear that we should trial the same.
I will continue to urge the Government to leave ideology at the door and take this radical, progressive action. To not is to risk the livelihoods and safety of vulnerable people who are desperately looking to our welfare system to shelter them from hardship.
* Layla Moran is the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon
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41 Comments
Layla makes a very good case for ensuring we provide relief to those who arent earning at the moment -but none at all for saying why the majority whose income is unaffected should also be getting money from the state
The answer to Simon’s question above has to be that the U in UBI stands for Universal. This means it is handed out to everyone whether or not they need it. This the big problem and why it will probably never receive enough support.
I’m not sure why Lib Dems are so keen on the idea. Why not give everyone a job, or at least several hours work, who needs one? For now, that job could be just staying at home or, maybe just helping out elderly neighbours with their shopping. Maybe helping out at the local hospital. But the job only is available to those who don’t have another source of income. Later, as the economy recovers, and more workers return to their previous jobs, the numbers of people requiring jobs will decrease.
The ones who remain can be given more meaningful work for the public purpose.
Automation and AI will mean that eventually UBi will be needed. The present economic model is that the rich invest money to produce goods and services. They employ people to do this and the income from employment purchases the goods and services. A virtuous circle.
But increasingly the rich invest in automation and AI. That will produce the goods and services and the income will go straight to the providers of capital, not to the providers of labour. Wealth even more concentrated in the hands of the few.
Unless we find a way to tax that wealth and redistribute it, there will be no money to purchase the goods and services. The whole structure of the economic model needs to change.
UBI is the logical answer to that. If we need less labour, because the work is done by capital, then giving everyone the right to live at a basic level and then the opportunity to enhance that income and lifestyle by earning, makes sense.
It seems an an anathema to many to give people something for free, but we need a paradigm shift in thinking to transition to the technological future.
This is something I’ve been pushing for a while – ever since I heard Natalie Bennett talk about it at a Skeptics at the Pub meeting in Barnsley.
UBI is an idea whose time has come – there are compelling arguments for it and responses to the common arguments against it.
https://waynechadburn.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/free-money-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/
UBI for one part of the population, pensioners, has been Party policy since 2004 when we passed the Citizen’s Pension motion at Conference. The simple response to those claiming that it will go to those who don’t need it, is that it can be recovered through the tax system; indeed a UBI can be part of a more progressive system of taxation by removal of personal allowances for income tax and tax thresholds for NI.
A basic income must be universal because there has never been a means-testing system that has not let some people in need fall through the cracks, either temporarily or permanently (and often through deliberate decisions based on conservative morality).
Since a UBI would have to be paid for with taxes it will essentially pay most people some of their tax back – until they’re in the sudden and unfortunate situation where they are no longer paying taxes, where they will still receive their UBI.
No call centres, no masses of bureaucracy – just a simple to administer payment. A very Liberal solution.
I think that UBI will be an important post-Covid-19 solution for unemployment and under-employment.
At the moment, I think it is more important to feed people, to prevent utilities from being cut off owing to unpaid bills, for people to have a roof over their heads.
It is too late to invent a UBI system for today.
This is a good call from Layla and I hope we see it adopted as party policy whether or not the current government can be persuaded to introduce it.
Universal is an important point. We know how to start it and how to pay for it so that it is equitable and benefits those that need it most.
This was party policy until 1994. It is time to move on from the Beveridge model and revisit the alternatives as proposed by Juliet Rhys-Williams and the campaign for basic income in the 1940s and 1950s https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/35278953.pdf
Italy has a citizens income for the poor only that has had mixed results https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/06/italy-rolls-out-citizens-income-for-the-poor-amid-criticisms but as noted “Italy lacks an efficient system for providing people with necessary training and employment, while millions are employed off-the-books, especially in the poorer southern regions.”
It will be interesting to see how the scheme proposed by Spain develops.
Thanks, Layla! The case for this is growing by the year even without the current crisis, and it’s heartening to see our parliamentarians ensuring that the party is ahead of the game in promoting this.
Excellent news. A UBI is a very liberal idea. It seeks to spread wealth, and with it power, widely. It would transform the relationship between the individual and the state – currently when a citizen loses their job etc they must go to the state and appeal for help which the paternal state may, or may not, grant. A UBI does away with such paternalism – the citizen has a right to a UBI.
I’m very pleased to see one of our MPs and leadership contenders backing the concept of UBI as a universal entitlement. UBI is a powerful weapon against poverty, ignorance and conformity, giving freedom and choice to those with least heft in society (and as Laurence Cox points out, there are ways of ensuring the better-off pay it back in taxes).
As Liberals we should see UBI not as a hand-out but as society’s recognition of the individual’s role as part of the communities they belong to – without prejudging the value of the contribution each individual makes, whether as a parent, carer, volunteer, artist, learner, friend or neighbour.
I can see the appeal of a UBI, but I’m not completely sold on it. However, trying to use the current crisis as the justification is not a good idea. A UBI would never be high enough to provide safety for all in this sort of crisis, some similar measure of the governments furlough system would be required. Also there are going to be effects that need to be considered and alleviated and will be part of a wider approach.
Jumping on a current crisis is not a good basis for that discussion.
I cannot see how the current situation provides a reason to implement a UBI. Yes, many people are struggling as a result of this crisis.
But, many are not- Jacob Rees-Mogg’s investment firm and Tesco shareholders will be doing very well I’d imagine.
There is not a bottomless pit of money- and I don’t think it is right that our younger generations should be saddled with even more debt to fund handouts to wealthy older people who do not need them.
By all means provide support to those who require it- I’d certainly look at increasing universal credit. But I just do not see how giving money to those who don’t need it is justifiable or affordable.
@ Laurence Cox,
“The simple response to those claiming that it will go to those who don’t need it, is that it can be recovered through the tax system” ??
At least 50% of people pay no income tax at all. Many of them do not live in poor households but they would still qualify for the UBI. Many make a good living in the £150 billion black economy. We all know just which professions will only take cash!
So you pay them a UBI and, yes, you can recover it from the tax system, but it won’t be them that you’ll be recovering it from. If people don’t need the money it’s far simpler to just not pay it to them in the first place.
This is a social liberal policy and well done to the Party’s likely future Leader, Layla, for promoting it. It will become policy at some point in the future, but I can just see another Party claiming it as their idea. I particularly like the support for low paid workers; people in part-time jobs particularly zero hour contracts, like myself, who fall outside of the existing safety nets.
It depends how the U.B.I. is structured. It can provide a basic income for most people, with supplementary amounts for those most in need. In response to John Smith: Increasing Universal Credit would be a start and the basis could be provided for the new system by using the existing Universal Credit system and adapting it.
@Peter Martin 9,22 am. “Why not give everyone a job ?” Does this mean I can choose a job that suits my interests, experience or talents or will it just be any job that some local apparatchik decides I should do ? This doesn’t sound very liberal. And if there are no suitable jobs in my area ?
The real issue is this. Labour markets of the future are likely to create even greater income inequality. Those with highly marketable skills, perhaps in new technologies, will be very, very highly rewarded but the vast majority will be in low skilled or service sector jobs paying not much more than the minimum wage. The UBI, paid to all but recouped from the higher paid through the tax system will narrow this gap. Gauranteeing a job paid at the UBI rate will do nothing to solve this problem.
Layla Moran,
I favour a UBI, however the costs are huge, but the devil is in the detail. How much a week or month are you advocating for your new temporary UBI? (On 20th March Ed Davey proposed increasing benefits for a single person to £150 a week.) Is your proposed UBI paid on top of all existing working-age benefits? Have you thought about how it would be possible that those who currently have no earnings because their household income is too high for means-tested benefits because of the high earnings of other household members do not benefit by the full amount of any UBI?
James Belchamber,
A UBI is a very Liberal solution but I suggest only if it is set at the poverty level or is on top of the existing benefits.
Joe Bourke,
I note you have changed your position from advocating your minimum income guarantee to advocating a UBI!
UBI should aim to become 60% of median income. It’s a guarantee against poverty.
Michael BG,
“Universal is an important point. We know how to start it and how to pay for it so that it is equitable and benefits those that need it most.”
By Universal, I mean every adult is entitled to a minimum guaranteed annual income of £5,200 paid either by way of a basic allowance through Universal credit or as a tax and national insurance reducer.
Every single benefit claimant or taxpayer is entitled to the same amount of benefit and it precludes objections such as the costs are huge or handouts to wealthy people who do not need them.
It is paid for by a reduction in the value of personal tax allowances for higher rate tax payers from 40% to 20%; limiting tax relief on pension payments to basic rate; unfreezing the fuel price escalator; and removing the starting NI threshold for employers national insurance for larger employers.
We already have a “partial” Basic Income because of the extent of “furloughing”. That Scheme covers Millions of people”!
So we can surely provide for the Universal Basic Income!
Taxes and borrowing are already all going up to pay for Covid19 economic consequences. I don’t see how when the public purse is stretched to a tune as predicted by the OBR, of a 35% contraction of the economy, that is the time to give public money to people who don’t need it. It’s only compelling when you don’t look at what better could be done with the money, such as investing in infrastructure, public services or giving more support to those in need.
Having a post-COVID-19 policy of paying people unconditionally to do nothing, for nothing in return, regardless of income and wealth, is not going to end well for us politically, regardless of the merits of the radical idea. As for the idea that UBI is inevitable due to the use of self-learning gadgets (AI) I would recommend viewing science fiction movies of the 50s,, 60s, 70s and 80s to see how accurate predictions of the future have been.
@ Chris Cory,
“Why not give everyone a job ?” Does this mean I can choose a job that suits my interests, experience or talents or will it just be any job that some local apparatchik decides I should do ?
Yes, you should be able to choose your own job just as you can now. We aren’t talking about everyone being allocated jobs by the local party commissar! But for those small percentage of people who are unemployed, and difficult to employ, we should guarantee some form of work which is within their capability. For younger people especially, but not exclusively, education and training will be a major part of the work. Everyone will be encouraged to move out of JG jobs as soon as they find jobs in the normal economy.
The JG will help prevent today’s ‘difficult to employ’ becoming tomorrows ‘impossible to employ’.
This would be particularly useful for many intellectually and physical disabled people who are nearly always overlooked when they are in competition for jobs with able bodied people.
It’s not so much “paying people to do nothing” as “ensuring people’s right to not live in poverty”.
Really what we’re proposing isn’t so exciting – it’s approximately applying the state pension (currently £134.25) to everyone. We can raise this through taxes and make it reliable through pension-style “UBI funds”, with the nice side-effect of creating additional investments.
A lot of this will simply mean taxing people more – most people will earn a little bit less now, but will have a surefire guarantee that they will never, ever be in poverty (and nor will their children, their parents, their butcher, their baker.. the guy that sleeps on the street).
With this baseline, people can stop thinking about how to “survive” and instead turn themselves towards how they want to thrive. For some this will mean giving foundations to their entrepreneurial spirit – for some, this will mean minimising outgoings so they can sit inside and play computer games. For most, this will just mean carrying on as normal – but with a watertight guarantee that they will never land up in poverty.
The wins will range from obliterating poverty-driven crime to creating a generation of new, British companies with employees that have a healthier relationship with their employers, instead of simply being forced to work out of fear of poverty.
Win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win.. -win.
“Doing nothing” is the way the economic system views unpaid carers. Is this a way of recognising them at last.
@ Rob Heale,
“…….So we can surely provide for the Universal Basic Income!”
You should’t extrapolate from the temporary to the permanent. I haven’t seen anyone come up with a UBI that is at all workable. Either the UBI is either trivially small and won’t make any significant difference to levels of poverty or it is substantially large and unaffordable.
And not necessarily affordable in terms of money. Hardly anyone takes into account the effect of a large UBI on the motivation of a highly taxed workforce. Why would anyone bother getting up a 5am to drive a train or a bus or open a shop if they had to accept a substantial wage cut to pay for their unconditional basic income?
The party will waste time and energy on this subject. It is one of many ideas looking for a problem. Solving problems means defining problems with great care and looking at many options and evidence. Promoting a ‘magic solution’ and then creating its many supposed merits is poor policymaking. There have been many trials of UBI in different parts of the world, and the evidential outcome is not overall positive, although enthusiasts wedded to the idea try to find merit from them. It is time to put the idea to bed and focus more professionally on the problems that UBI is meant to address.
Well put Layla. I also agree with the points made by Paul Michael Sibert. The current economic model is changing with reduced levels of employment security, more automation, and the increasingly invasive applications of AI. The current global market system will not be fit for purpose as more highly paid career positions are replaced by AI, and automation does away with other more skills based jobs.
UBI does not need to be that expensive, as tax rates can be adjusted and some other benefits are replaced by UBI. As a society we need new and radical approaches to these problems, and UBI is one such approach.
>There have been many trials of UBI in different parts of the world, and the evidential outcome is not overall positive
This is just not true @Paul – there have been many trials and they HAVE had overall positive outcomes (although there’s way too little evidence to draw firm conclusions).
What research are you citing here?
As can be seen from this thread UBI is a highly divisive issue. It is not just divisive for Liberals but right across the political spectrum. We need a Leader who can unite our Party not divide it. The wounds from the General Election are too sore and too new. They need time to heal. Jane Dodds the Welsh Party Leader advocates UBI at the drop of a hat. You only have to look at the electoral wasteland that Wales has become for the Liberal Democrats to realise that a Leader who divides a Party is on a hiding to nothing.
Layla will face the same kind of obstacles that the Liberal MP Juliet Rhys-Williams faced with the campaign for basic income in the 1940s and 1950s
Concern about malnutrition and work incentives pushed her towards a universalist view of welfare, and when she fought the safe Labour seat of Pontypridd as a Liberal National candidate in a February 1938 by-election she emphasized her support for family allowances, cheap milk, and better old age pensions. Later that year the Munich agreement shattered her faith in the National Government, and she defected to the opposition Liberals. Her Liberalism was based on social policy. It was Conservative complacency over distressed areas and ‘appeasement’ which drove her away from the National government.
The Beveridge social insurance model at the heart of the post-war settlement is profoundly gendered, being strongly oriented towards the needs of capitalist employment in general and the male breadwinner in particular. Partly for this reason, post-war governments have never wholly succeeded in eliminating poverty except on the most restrictive definition.
Rhys-Williams’ campaign helped lay the foundations for a distinctive ‘social market’ approach to the relief of poverty through direct income transfers, which has become increasingly central to British social policy debate since the 1960s and 1970s. Not only did Rhys-Williams force Treasury officials to examine the practicability of a basic income, but she also developed a following among liberal economists such as James Meade and Alan Peacock, who saw transfer payments as a market-oriented alternative to collective provision and benefits in kind.
In today’s society, single-parent families and working housewives are the norm not the exception. Full employment in nationalised industries is no longer possible and the problem of rent remains unaddressed, just as it was never solved by Beveridge.
The minimum income guarantee coupled with job guarantees and land value based tax reform address these issues directly. These policies are badly needed, easily affordable, progressive and distinctly Liberal. As with all campaigns for radical change they need a determined champion of the calibre of Juliet Rhys-Williams. I wish Layla success in her campaign to make this party policy.
James Belchamber asked about references.
The Fiscal and Distributional Implications
of Alternative Universal Basic Income Schemes in the UK
Dr Luke Martinelli
IPR Research Associate, University of Bath
Institute for Policy Research
March 2017
UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME
Public Services lnternational, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. April 2019
http://www.world-psi.org/sites/default/files/documents/research/en_ubi_full_report_2019.pdf
A list of trials that can be tracked and followed up…
https://basicincome.org/news/2017/10/overview-of-current-basic-income-related-experiments-october-2017/
A list of schemes and a good overview from a broadly pro-UBI organisation..
https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income/
Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried Before. It Didn’t Work and the results weren’t pretty. Oct 2018
https://fee.org/articles/universal-basic-income-has-been-tried-before-it-didn-t-work/
‘Universal Basic Income is a failure, new report says’
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/112558711/universal-basic-income-is-a-failure-new-report-says
The Kenyan trials were all paid for by external aid donors and esentialy were a few dollars per month.
‘Money for nothing: the truth about universal basic income’
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05259-x
See also https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/insights/23750/the-promise-of-kenya-s-ubi-trial
A new study on universal basic income says it doesn’t achieve its main purpose and is economically illiterate. May 2017
https://www.businessinsider.com/universal-basic-income-new-study-says-it-doesnt-achieve-main-purpose-2019-5?op=1
The, perhaps over-researched, Finnish trial…
‘Finland to end basic income trial after two years’ Guardian. 23rd April 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/23/finland-to-end-basic-income-trial-after-two-years
‘Finland’s basic income trial exposes timeless welfare reform dilemma’ 1st May 2018
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-01/finland-universal-basic-income-welfare-reform/9709798
‘Finland basic income trial left people ‘happier but jobless’ 8 February 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47169549
Websites which are pro-UBI on ideological grounds, but which take a ‘pros and cons’ approach, tend to feature a bullet point way down the list like ‘..the problem of affordability remains UBI’s most pertinent criticism’* or ‘Financing is one challenge’ **
* https://sevenpillarsinstitute.org/universal-basic-income-more-empirical-studies/
** https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/insights/23750/the-promise-of-kenya-s-ubi-trial
To make the key point… I might propose a free, unconditional salary of £20,000 per month for every resident in the UK regardless of age or nationality. It would have lots of positive effects which I can list, including health benefits, reduced poverty, and so on. However, if implemented the long term ‘moral hazard’ and other dynamic effects such as the entire population being beholden to the state, would take years to wash through. Should skeptics just wait for years while the UBI advocates calculated its net benefits ? Moreover, in assessing the £20,000 per month idea, the problem of ‘affordability’ is not just one minor negative bullet point amongst long lists of pros and cons. It is the crux of any such proposal, especially since it is a transfer of income from one group to another. Let us not forget the version of UBI implemented in the Soviet Union (guaranteed equal income). This is not a ‘political point score’. It is the only example of UBI that was attempted over decades. There were certain illiberal implications …
Finally, there is only one very long term scheme which has been formally studied and that is in Alaska. However, the Alaskan scheme is just distribution of oil revenues, which are very high per capita and not a viable option for nearly all other countries on the planet.
James Belchamber,
“UBI should aim to become 60% of median income. It’s a guarantee against poverty.”
Indeed, but all UBI schemes I have seen never set the rate to 60% of median income or set out a path to get there.
Joe Bourke,
Your minimum income guarantee you have stated is not universal, because you have stated that those people who are not entitled to benefits and who don’t have an income would not be entitled to it.
Rob Heale,
It would cost more money to provide a Universal Basic Income on top of the 80% of existing wages commitment, even if set at half the Universal Credit couple rate which was due to come into force in April (117.09 /2 =) £58.55 a week. If a UBI was set at £138.10 per week (half of the poverty line for couples) for those of working age it would cost £309.5 billion. (I haven’t seen any estimates for paying the 80% of wages and profits for the self-employed, but I expect it to be about £103 billion per quarter.)
I think the problem with discussion around UBI is that it is too often framed as a utopian ideal that would mean either great numbers of people of working age could opt-out from producing goods and services; or that it could be used to take the national income of a country and simply distribute it equally per head of population. Neither proposition is realistic or desirable. Nor is any such proposal that takes no account of human behaviour or work incentives.
UBI should be framed as an integration of the tax and benefit system. The modern welfare state has two basic components. Universal services such as health, education, defence and law and order that are a common public good and cash transfers to pensioners, the incapacitated and the unemployed. The budget for current spending is primarily financed by direct and indirect taxation.
This present crisis has highlighted once again the relatively low pay of essential workers many of whom are working in the public sector. If such workers are to receive a reasonable financial reward commensurate with the valuable services they provide, then a greater proportion of national income will have to be allocated to their incomes.
Integrating the tax and benefit system offers a means of achieving this for both the lowest paid and those reliant on benefits whether that be working tax credits, housing benefit or other forms of cash transfers.
Integration can ensure that those on the lowest incomes are guaranteed a minimum income and those that have no need of a UBI receive only a tax and national allowance against their assessable income. If they have independent means and as such are not eligible for benefits or have no taxable income then they would receive no UBI or usable tax allowances.
Joe Bourke,
I think your last comment clearly shows that you don’t support a Universal Basic Income. I hope you can make this clear in your future posts on this subject. We both recognise that a UBI would benefit those people who currently have no earnings and receive no benefits because their household income is too high for means-tested benefits because of the high earnings of other household members. You want to deal with this by excluding them from your Minimum Income Guarantee; I want to consider how we could increase the tax paid by the household to cover the amount of UBI this person receives.
Another difference is that I want those currently on benefits to receive benefit at the poverty level. I feel therefore that a UBI has to be on top of the existing benefit system, unless the benefit levels are at the poverty line. If the UBI was £100 a week then I would want the standard rate of benefit for a single person to be £60.30 a week and for a couple £76.20 a week.
Most people of working age already receive either tax and NI allowances worth £3645 if or benefits worth a similar amount. People who don’t include those with partners earning, students and the unprofitably self-employed. Introducing a UBI at that level would not be massively expensive. Benefits needs would be calculated as now but reduced by amount of the UBI. The number of people getting means tested benefits would be far fewer (If we set it at £3877 we would exclude everyone on JSA but not housing benefit).
What would be difficult is “trialling”. You can’t trial universality. Any version of UBI involves raising taxes. You can’t do that to a random selection of people.
Michael BG,
I do support a Universal Basic Income and would not let the perfect be the enemy of good, if this is what the party decides to adopt as policy. Child Benefit has been Universal for decades until George Osborne brought in a clawback for households with a member earning over 50k. Similarly, many pensioner benefits are universal including the state pension for the great majority with a contribution record, winter fuel payments, free prescriptions and eye tests, bus passes and TV licenses for the over 75s, regardless of income levels.
I think the integration of tax and Ni allowances with the Universal credit basic allowance and work allowances into a minimum income guarantee overcomes the objection to paying people who may not need it. Similarly, labour market support in the form of job guarantees overcomes the objection to paying people to be idle who are perfectly capable of earning a living, Finally, land value capture in the form of public land acquisition and reform of business rates and council tax to place the burden on landowners (via a land value tax) rather than tenants, can address the issue of affordable housing and local authority financing.
It is important to remember that over 50% of those classed as in relative poverty are homeowners and the great bulk of the other half will be renting in the private sector. Those that have been able to secure council or subsidised housing association accommodation are generally in a much better position than those struggling with private-sector mortgages and rents.
Peter Davis,
I would agree with your assessment. The basic allowance for Universal Credit has been increased by £1,000 this year (albeit temporarily for 12 months). That brings the basic allowance not too far from £100 per week which is probably a politically feasible level to consider as a minimum income guarantee, that has the benefit of not requiring increases in the rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT.
There’s been some discussion of a trial of a UBI. How do I volunteer to take part? I’d be happy to provide some feedback. I’m sure it will be along the lines that I’m going to be happy when the trial starts. The bigger the UBI the happier I’ll be. Then when it stops I’ll be sad!