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Basic Income

Asked by Bell Ribeiro-AddyLabourTreasuryTabled Answered 30 June 2025UIN 62232

The question

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has made an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of international trials of universal basic income.

Answered by Emma Reynolds

HM Treasury does not prepare forecasts for the UK economy. These forecasts, including any assessment of the macroeconomic impact of policy decisions, are the responsibility of the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

The OBR publish their forecast in their Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO). The OBR’s latest EFO can be found here: Economic and fiscal outlook – March 2025 - Office for Budget Responsibility. This includes the OBR’s assessment of government policy announced at Spring Statement 2025.

Universal Basic Income is not a government policy and therefore no assessment has been made of its economic or distributional impacts.

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