Universal Basic Income will aid poorest in pandemic – Yorkshire Post Letters

AS we see the effects of the voronavirus pandemic hit our society harder than ever before, it is easier than ever to see the inequalities across our region.

Whether it is our vulnerable, our businesses or our friends and family, it goes without saying: we have endured great hardship over the last 12 months.

However, with hardship, there is an opportunity to lift the weight from peoples shoulders when it comes to economic inequality we see in our day-to-day lives across our cities.

That opportunity is a Universal Basic Income. A Universal Basic Income is explained simply – it is a fixed, unconditional, universal payment to all in our society. It has the power to be a great leveller, to the economic insecurity coronavirus has exposed.

As we endure this pandemic, it is essential to pioneering change towards making a Universal Basic Income a reality. This, of course, comes with challenges.

Sceptics, of which I was one, always say “it is just free money”, “we’ll never be able to make it work”, but the pandemic gives the idea of Universal Basic Income limelight.

As we see the Government shell out billions on failed operations like Test and Trace while people still slip through the cracks of their support, a Basic Income policy is almost a no-brainer. It gives the Government a lightbulb moment that can commit us to a caring society where no one gets left behind.

A Basic Income would have seen the free school meals meltdown from government melt away with parents having a safety net. A Basic Income would see those who have fallen through the cracks of Covid support catered to and supported. A Basic Income could be our generation’s answer to the National Health Service.

This time last year plans brought forward by Liberal Democrats in Hull to pilot a Universal Basic Income were swotted away by Government.

But now, in this current climate, the Government would be wise to implement a policy that would free people in the region from hardship and importantly, ensure no one is left behind as we head towards the vaccine and the light at the end of the tunnel.

From: Deborah Fuller, Windsor Road, London.

LONDON has the highest number of Covid cases in the country, the highest percentage of the new highly infectious strain of the virus and yet we have had the least amount of vaccine.

From: Michael Armitage, Dunkeswick.

THIS pandemic is being 
made so much harder to 
bear than would otherwise be the case by all those moaners
and whingers, led by the BBC, who find fault in everything 
done by the Government in tackling it.

Yes, the Government has 
made mistakes but it has got very much more right than wrong.

Being in risk group three, I have been for the first Covid vaccination.

Everything from prompt receipt of the NHS letter to ease of booking both first and second vaccinations online to reception at the vaccination centre to receiving the jab was a model of efficiency and excellent planning.

Well done, Boris Johnson and team.

Press on with your good work and ignore the moaners and whingers, as you did with Brexit, and which is why our vaccination programme is, thankfully, not in the same sorry place as it is in all the countries of the EU.

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

IT really is too early to judge whether the most vulnerable groups will be vaccinated by the middle of February (The Yorkshire Post, January 21).

Yorkshire has been well ahead in our vaccination numbers and it is right the rest of the country be allowed to catch up.

Could some of the frustration experienced by the GPs be explained by the fact that, if they can’t vaccinate their numbers, they lose £12.58 for every vaccination they are unable to carry out?

From: B Murray, Sheffield.

WHAT a brilliant idea from Leeds Tech Angels for redundant computers to be used by children who do not have access to these – I hope it goes global.

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