AS the International Conference on Universal Basic Income hosted by the University of Strathclyde got under way, the Scottish Government started its preparations for a minimum income guarantee and the latest GERS figures were published, Wednesday was some day.

Ronnie Cowan MP contributed an article titled “How Tories are standing in way of universal basic income pilots in Scotland” (August 18). I don’t know Ronnie but having read many of his articles, speeches and comments I rarely find myself in disagreement with him. But on universal basic income (UBI) pilots, I do.

So many clever people agonise over the shape and form of a UBI or income guarantee and evidential testing and pilots in a quest to alleviate poverty, that by the time anything transformational is introduced another generation will have been lost, their life chances fatally undermined.

But it need not be this way if our starting point is asking how much everyone needs to live a life free from poverty. I reckon £200 per week for every adult and child in Scotland would be a reasonable figure, costing about £55 billion per annum. Additional benefits would still be available for those with special needs.

So if we accept that the root out of poverty is to put money in people’s hands, why are we wasting our time and lives on debating the form of a UBI when the only things we need to agree is the level of UBI required and how we can raise the public funds to implement it?

Politicians, economists and the unco guid are so immersed in the current system of taxation and welfare and how to balance these that the costs of administration and the anxiety to ensure that the rich pay more takes precedence over sweeping away these silos and raising public funding from our land.

There is no doubt that our land can raise more public funding than all existing taxation. That assertion is not based on opinion. It’s based on the known facts of the extent of our land and property, the size of our population, indulging the Unionists by accepting their worst-case scenario of GERS shortfalls and adding the cost of public spending to deliver a UBI of £200 per week (or more if government deems £200 insufficient) for everyone.

In my book, AGFRR: Annual Ground, Floor and Roof Rent, I show how even under devolution the Scottish Government could take control of the Scottish economy and introduce a UBI now, without the cooperation of the UK Government and HMRC.

Section 80 I of the Scotland Act 1998 (as amended) provides the authority to introduce it. Under devolution the Scottish taxes of council tax, commercial rates, LBTT etc, as well as a nil rate on income tax on earned income, would be replaced by AGFRR, charged per square metre on all land, floor and roofs at a rate set according to certain land types. Until independence, reserved taxes would still be paid to HMRC. Under devolution an urban land rate of £7.415 per square metre would raise enough to cover 98% the cost of the UBI and 120% of existing Scottish and local government costs. The remaining 2% would be raised from rural land types.

Ronnie Cowan raises concerns that a UBI pilot would leave people open to the UK Government and its agencies reducing existing benefits so the amount of UBI could be less than the total benefits package someone might receive. How many people are in receipt of a a package of means-tested benefits exceeding £200 per week?

Apart from state pension and Universal Credit, most other benefits are being devolved to the Scottish Parliament, so the power of the UK Government to makes people’s income worse by penalising a Scots UBI system is a fiction under current legislation.

A UBI of £200 would be in addition to the state pension. Is Ronnie Cowan seriously saying that a UK Government would deny some of its citizens a state pension on the basis of where they lived in the UK despite having contributed National Insurance for decades? If he is, then in one moment of madness the UK has signed its own death warrant as Scots will not accept such an immoral action whose legality would be questionable to say the least.

Call me a cynic, but I think that the agony of delivering a worthwhile UBI is down to where does the money come from, and that’s what the policymakers don’t like to acknowledge. The public sector already owns most of the land and property which is vacant and dilapidated in urban Scotland. The Land Commission confirms this. If AGFRR was charged on that as well as privately owned property then the public sector would not be long in either stewarding its land and property properly to meet the AGFRR charge or disposing of it.

So if we think the eradication of poverty is urgent then stop all this debate. The source of the money is there. It can be implemented very quickly as all the essential infrastructure is in place. No-one will be left out and no land and property owner will be able to avoid paying AGFRR.
Graeme McCormick
Arden