Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Helena Bedalli
Sometimes in life, the penny just drops.
You walk around in a slumber most of the time,
and you may see something, hear something, experience something,
that jolts you awake.
Two years ago, this happened to me.
I'm involved in education on the east side of London.
I was told of a case of two women,
who were studying to be care workers on a college course.
They were coming to the end of their course.
The local benefits office
decided that they should be actively seeking work.
Naturally, this started to intrude in their studies.
They gave up, they left their course, they didn't get the qualifications.
This was a disaster.
It was a disaster for them,
because they didn't become the care workers they dreamed of:
going on a different career path,
put their families on different trajectories...
It is a disaster for us.
We need care workers.
We have an aging society.
We needed them to get those qualifications.
How did I feel about this?
I felt angry.
I felt very angry.
Then, I started to piece things together.
Started to think about the food banks.
Over a million people getting emergency food packages per year.
Over a million. In 21st century Britain.
Then, I did a bit of digging around.
Did you know, in 2014
one in five job seekers
received sanctions from the benefit office?
Had money taken away from them,
so they end up in food banks.
They might have missed a bus,
might have some caring responsibilities,
might just be a bit late.
They lose money.
They go the food banks.
One in five.
The same year we convicted 220 tax evaders.
That says something very big about our priorities as a society.
Zero-hours contracts.
This week, we've heard about one of our major sports retailers,
who basically treats workers like cogs in a machine,
doesn't pay them the money that they're due.
Piecing it together, piecing it together.
I saw some data
from JPMorgan Chase Institute, in the U.S.
It shows that three quarters of the lowest-earning workers
face variations in their monthly income of 30 percent from month to month,
and you're a low-income worker.
It's the same in the UK.
The OECD have discovered
that all the jobs that we have created since 1995
are in non-standard work.
Let me tell you what non-standard work is:
temp work, low-pay, and part-time work, low-paying self-employment.
Piecing it together, you understand the insecurity that people are facing.
I grew up near here.
I grew up not far from the Rover factory, in Longbridge.
I can remember friends getting jobs there,
and telling me what a great job [it was]:
good pay, good work.
A job for life.
Rover, at its peak, employed 20-odd thousand people.
There are only 400 people on that site now.
It wasn't a job for life.
We see this insecurity spreading.
There's a lot of talk about technology, about automation,
about artificial intelligence, about big data.
And the impact that's going to have on the world of work.
It could be significant.
We don't yet know, but it's likely to add to the insecurity.
I'll tell you what?
If there are doctors, lawyers, and accountants in the audience,
you're not safe either.
The insecurity is likely to spread.
People predict that the age of insecurity is coming.
They're wrong, you know.
The age of insecurity is not coming:
The age of insecurity is already here.
What are we doing about it?
Our response is to set up
a system of tax, of benefits, of tax credits,
that is so convoluted, so intrusive, so complex, so difficult, so coercive,
that it adds to the insecurity.
Adds to the insecurity.
We should be pushing back against the insecurity:
We're adding to it.
We're spending tens of billions of pounds
on what is basically a patched up, broken system,
a system that leaves 37 percent of children in Birmingham
growing up in poverty.
That's the system that we have created, we as a society have created.
We indulge in rhetoric, collectively, about skivers, strivers, shirkers,
and people who are dependent.
We divide up.
When we talk about people in that way,
that's the sort of society we end up with.
We end up with a society where potential care workers
are taken off college work, to find low-wage employment,
so they gain the qualifications they need, and we need.
That's where we end up.
We need something very different.
This is not just about welfare.
It's about work.
It's about us, as people.
It's about the type of lives that we want to support.
It's about supporting the whole of our humanity,
not just the narrow wage labor bit.
Yes, work is important, of course it is,
but so is caring for our families,
so contributing to our local communities, so improving ourselves is.
We need a system that supports all those things,
not just a very narrow bit of it.
We need a platform, but we've built a cage.
The platform we need is a wedge of freedom,
a foundation of security,
a support for people
to care for their families, for their communities
to try new things, to unleash their creativity,
maybe try new business,
to get new qualifications, to learn new things.
We can do all this.
That's the platform that we need.
Instead, we've built this cage.
The platform we need is something called Universal Basic Income.
Some of you may have heard about Universal Basic Income,
some of you may have not.
Let me just tell you what it is.
It's dead simple.
It's a payment that's made to every man, woman, and child,
as of right,
without conditions.
It's theirs, it's a basis for them to thrive.
That's what the Universal Basic Income is, really simple idea, deadly simple.
Of course, many who have built the system that we're currently facing,
find this very difficult to understand.
They describe it as Utopian.
It's unaffordable, it's crazy, it's naïve, it's nonsense.
All of this is just in the last week, by the way.
(Laughter)
If this was such a crazy idea, why are they shouting about it so loudly?
They don't like the fact that it's a big, new idea.
That's what the Basic Income is.
Now, let me tell you the reality.
You hear a lot of stuff, let's talk about the facts.
It's not unaffordable.
At the RSA, we've done the sums.
All of the organizations have done the sums, as well.
For the same amount of money
that we've built this failing system with,
the same amount of money we've given ourselves in tax breaks,
the same amount of money that we've given to corporations in tax breaks
in the last 10 or 15 years,
we can build a Basic Income.
Fact.
And it will work.
How do I know?
Because we tried.
It was tried in the 1970s,
in a town called Dauphin, in Manitoba, in Canada.
People got healthier.
Mental health was better.
People stayed in education longer, got more qualifications.
Their well-being was greater.
There's what's like a Basic Income in Alaska, in the United States.
Since that was introduced, in the early 1980s,
poverty has plummeted in Alaska.
Alaska is one of the most equal U.S. states.
It's working in Alaska.
It was tried in India.
Women left their homes, set up cooperative businesses,
set up enterprises, became creative,
and contributed economically and socially in a greater way
to their local communities.
It's been tried in Kenya, it's been tried in Namibia,
it's been tried in North Carolina, U.S.
Every time it's been tried,
it has worked.
Looking at our failing system,
and looking at what Basic Income can do, and has done,
there's a sudden surge of interest across the world, in this idea.
Suddenly, people are standing up and saying,
"The status quo is not good enough.
We want to try something different. We want to try the Basic Income."
In Holland,
the cities of Utrecht, Groningen, Tilburg
are saying, "We want to try the Basic Income."
In Canada,
the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Prince Edward Island,
the Liberal party itself, which is in government in Canada,
are all saying, "We want to try the Basic Income."
In Oakland, in California,
there's an idea to try a Basic Income there.
The Swiss canton of Lausanne,
they're going to try a Basic Income there.
The Finnish government has said, "We want to try a Basic Income."
They're going to try it next year, as well.
Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, U.S., Canada,
provinces, cities, nations
are saying, "We want to try the Basic Income."
What about if Birmingham, the city of Birmingham,
Birmingham, the place of industry,
the place of enterprise, the place of innovation,
the place of creativity, engine of social reform,
the place where change happens,
was to say that it wanted to try the Basic Income?
What would that be like?
I want to ask you to think about something.
I want to ask you to look into the idea yourselves,
to think about what the answer would be
if people asked you,
"What would the Basic Income mean to me?"
Your answer will be very simple.
Your answer will be, "Instead of the welfare state,
instead of politicians,
instead of the media being the boss of you,
you should be the boss of you.
We should be the boss of ourselves.
We should boss this city."
Speak to your families about it.
Speak to your neighbors.
Speak to your colleagues, speak to your friends.
Raise it in your communities
Talk about it.
This is how change happens -
when suddenly, ideas which seem like they're off the wall
become mainstream because people are thinking and talking about it,
and doing proper factual research, and talking about the facts,
not just rejecting things out of hand.
So talk about it.
Raise it with your city's leaders,
and say, "We, Birmingham, we want to give the Basic Income."
Say to your city's leaders.
Go speak to the government, and tell them,
"We want to try the Basic Income in Birmingham."
Then, as a city, raise your hands and say:
"We volunteer for security for our people.
We volunteer for freedom.
We volunteer for the power of us.
We volunteer to unleash our creativity.
We volunteer for the Universal Basic Income."
Thank you.
(Applause)