The UK could introduce a universal basic income (UBI) to protect workers in industries that are being disrupted by AI, the investment minister Jason Stockwood has said.
“Bumpy” changes to society caused by the introduction of the technology would mean there would have to be “some sort of concessionary arrangement with jobs that go immediately”, Lord Stockwood said.
The Labour peer told the Financial Times: “Undoubtedly we’re going to have to think really carefully about how we soft-land those industries that go away, so some sort of [universal basic income], some sort of lifelong mechanism as well so people can retrain.”
A universal basic income is not part of official government policy, but when asked whether people in government were considering the need for UBI, Stockwood told the FT: “People are definitely talking about it.”
The technology entrepreneur, who took up his ministerial post in September, said part of his motivation for joining the government was to help ensure the workforce was prepared for rapid change.
Fears continue to grow about the impact of artificial intelligence on Britain’s job market. This week research by the investment bank Morgan Stanley found the UK was losing more jobs than it is creating because of AI and was being hit harder than other large economies.
This month the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said AI could destroy swathes of jobs in the capital and “usher in a new era of mass unemployment”.
Last week, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of the US bank JP Morgan, told the World Economic Forum in Davos that governments and businesses would have to step in to help workers whose roles were displaced by the technology, or risk civil unrest.
Stockwood, who held senior positions at Lastminute.com, Travelocity and Match.com, oversaw the $490m (£400m at the time) sale of the online insurance broker Simply Business to the US insurer Travelers in 2017. He later bought a stake the football club of his home town, Grimsby Town FC.
While he has previously been a vocal proponent of a wealth tax in the UK, Stockwood told the FT he had not repeated his calls for the government to go further on taxing the rich.
However, he added: “If you make your money and the first thing you do is you speak to a tax adviser to ask: ‘Where can we pay the lowest tax?’ we don’t want those people in this country, I’d suggest, because you’re not committed to your communities and the long-term success in this country.”
Stockwood was preceded as investment minister by Poppy Gustafsson, a former chief executive of the cybersecurity firm Darktrace, who stepped down after less than a year in the job.
