TL;DR
UK investment minister Lord Jason Stockwood has revealed that government colleagues are actively discussing universal basic income to support workers in industries likely to be disrupted by AI. The minister, who previously suggested tech companies could pay a windfall levy to fund UBI payments, emphasised the need for mechanisms to help workers retrain and “soft-land” affected industries.
Government Discussions on AI Safety Net
Speaking to the Financial Times, Lord Stockwood acknowledged that “bumpy” changes to society caused by AI would require “some sort of concessionary arrangement with jobs that go immediately.” While UBI is not official government policy, Stockwood confirmed that “people are definitely talking about it” within government.
The minister’s comments come in the same week that Anthropic’s chief executive warned of “unusually painful” disruption to job markets, describing AI as a “general labour substitute for humans.” London mayor Sadiq Khan has also warned of a potential “new era of mass unemployment.”
Addressing Inequality Concerns
Stockwood expressed concern about AI’s potential to embed inequality: “I think of the productivity gains and the wealth that AI can create, but we also need to think of the more pernicious and near-term danger that it just embeds inequality and makes a really small cohort of super-wealthy elites even wealthier because they control the capital and the technologies.”
Technology secretary Liz Kendall separately acknowledged that “some jobs will go” as a result of AI, citing concerns about entry-level roles in finance and law, whilst arguing that “more jobs will be created than will go.”
Looking Forward
The government has committed not to “leave individuals and communities to cope on their own” as AI transforms the workforce. For UK businesses, particularly SMEs, these discussions signal that workforce transition support mechanisms may emerge as part of the policy landscape. The debate around funding mechanisms—including potential tech company levies—will likely intensify as AI adoption accelerates across industries.