UNIVERSAL basic income (UBI) — a regular cash payment made to individuals without means-testing or conditionality — has been described as an idea whose time has come, supported across the political divide from free market libertarians to leftwingers attracted to the idea of emancipating the working class from wage labour.

Disabled people, as one of the groups at the sharp end of “welfare reform,” are not convinced that UBI can deliver the solution so desperately needed to fix the social security system.

A new report from Disabled People Against Cuts argues that the introduction of UBI could further disadvantage those who have suffered the most since 2010.

Although UBI pilots in India produced positive outcomes for disabled people, these tell us little more than that giving money to people with nothing is a good thing. Meanwhile, there is no precedent for replacing a complex, targeted social security system such as we have in Britain with a UBI.

Even the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and World Bank, which are in favour of using UBI to ameliorate trends in the modern labour market such as rising job insecurity, reduced obligations on employers and lower wages, concede that it isn’t feasible to introduce it to Britain.

Existing benefit levels are so far below a guaranteed minimum income level here that it could only be financed through steep tax rises.

In Britain a monthly UBI amount that would cost the same as existing benefits and tax free allowances would pay £230 yet the poverty line for a single person is £702.

A basic income will not cover the extra costs of disability and therefore a system of disability benefits will still be needed alongside a UBI.

An additional payment would almost certainly mean a system of assessments for eligibility. Claims that a UBI would end such testing the associated stigmatisation of being on benefits are overstated.

Disabled people are concerned that the need to finance UBI payments could lead to even more pressure to save money and restrict eligibility to these additional disability payments than under the current system.

The crisis in social care has taken disabled people’s quality of life dramatically backwards. At present, public spending cuts are leaving increasing numbers trapped in their own homes without access to food, water or the toilet for hours at a time, day and night.

However disabled people aspire not only to be clean, watered and fed but to be able to take part in society, see our friends and family, work or volunteer or engage in meaningful activity and have choice and dignity in our lives.

We are concerned that the funding pressures of introducing UBI will prevent the level of investment in public services that we need.

UBI adapts to a flexible model of employment which favours employers while further disadvantaging workers. All workers, but especially disabled people in work, need job security with regular hours and sick pay.

UBI would subsidise the cost of living of a large section of the population that should be covered by higher wages paid by employers. It could also make it easier for employers to lower wages even further.

While many of us would be in favour of tax rises to fund welfare provision — particularly corporation tax and a progressive rise in the higher rate of income tax — the use of this for a UBI rather than more traditional forms of disability and unemployment support would mean much of the benefit flowing back to employers rather than those in most need.

In functioning as a wage subsidy, a UBI would over time act to significantly reduce employer’s National Insurance contributions while employers would also benefit from the state bearing an increased part of the cost of maintaining and reproducing the workforce.

It would be hard to make a case that this is a more progressive solution than simply reversing the damage that the Tories have done to current systems through measures such as restoring the Independent Living Fund, scrapping conditionality and sanctions, and re-establishing the principle of universal benefits paid for by progressive taxation where the rich pay a greater proportion.

The report comes at a time when popular support for the idea of UBI appears to be on the wane: whereas significant worldwide interest in basic income led to 2016 being dubbed the “year of the pilot,” with both the TUC and Unite the union passing motions in favour, right-wing governments in Canada and Finland have since terminated their trials while left-wing commentators are voicing concerns similar to those raised by DPAC.

Last week at PCS union’s launch of its report on the case for radical change of the social security system, general secretary Mark Serwotka called for a detailed analysis of the implications of UBI before proposals are taken forwards. Labour is nevertheless committed to including basic income pilots in its next manifesto.

For disabled people, a central principle underpinning any social security policy development must be meaningful engagement with the lived experience of those affected.

The “test and learn” approach of universal credit (UC) has, as identified at the end of 2018 by the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty, made guinea pigs of the most disadvantaged members of society.

The disastrous impacts of UC were entirely predictable but ignored. Transformation of the social security system won’t succeed through top-down policy-making: it has to be designed to meet need, and to do that you need to listen to those at the grassroots.

Disabled people have experienced to our detriment, through UC and the personalisation of social care, how what can be presented as progressive ideas can in practice affect widespread harm. We must not repeat this mistake through UBI.

Ellen Clifford is an organiser for Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)