Basic Income – An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

Date: 17 November 2016

Time: 12.30 – 13.45pm

Venue: At-Bristol Science Centre

Speakers: Professor Nick Pearce, Director, IPR; Torsten Bell, Director, the Resolution Foundation; Dr Louise Haagh, Reader in Politics, University of York; and Anthony Painter, Director, RSA Action and Research Centre.

Chair: Jonathan Derbyshire, Executive Comment Editor, Financial Times

Audience: This event is open to all, with tickets available for £7, or £6 concession, here.

As part of the Bristol Festival of Economics programme, five leading experts on universal basic income will convene on 17 November to discuss this promising but still divisive model.

The panel debate, which has been arranged by Bristol Festival of Ideas and is in association with the Institute for Policy Research (IPR), will explore the potential benefits of universal basic income compared with other welfare systems – including its simplicity and its lack of reliance on eligibility criteria. They will also discuss its pitfalls; critics say a basic income would necessitate large tax increases, and argue it would undermine some people’s incentive to find work.

IPR Director Nick Pearce, who leads research on basic income within the Institute, will be joined by three further panellists well-placed to discuss this issue. Torsten Bell, Director of the Resolution Foundation, has previously served as Director of Policy for the Labour Party – and has also worked in the Treasury, both as a special adviser and a civil servant.

Louise Haagh is a reader in the Department of Politics at the University of York. She is a world poverty, labour studies and social policy specialist working in the field of comparative labour market institutions, welfare regimes and the political economy of development. She is the editor of the academic journal  Basic Income Studies and is elected co-chair of the executive committee of the Basic Income Earth Network.

Anthony Painter is director of the Action and Research Centre at the RSA, where he oversees research, policy and practical innovation. He previously directed the Independent Review of the Police Federation and has also worked with Google, the BBC, the BMA, the Education and Training Foundation, the Association of Colleges and the Metropolitan Police. He is the author of three books, most recently  Left Without a Future? Social Justice in Anxious Times.

Panel chair Jonathan Derbyshire is Executive Comment Editor of the  Financial Times. He was previously Managing Editor of  Prospect and, before that, Culture Editor of  New Statesman. He has also written on topics within economics for a number of other publications, including  The Guardian,  The Observer and  The Times Literary Supplement.

For further details, click here.