Has the time come for a universal basic income?

Readers respond to John Harris's article on how UBI could offer security to millions of people

John Harris rightly points out that the need for a universal basic income is increasingly compelling (Why universal basic income could help us fight the next wave of economic shocks, 3 May). A problem that has dogged UBI is that it is perceived as a state handout and raises questions of how it will be paid for. But there is a morally just means of financing a basic income for all. Land is a gift of nature (the commons), which over the course of history has been appropriated into private ownership by the ruling minorities. Ownership of such a vital resource bestows on the rentier class owners enormous wealth, power and social advantage, to the disadvantage of the dispossessed majority.

This unjust situation could be partly redressed through restoring the principle of the commons and imposing a rental charge on landholders (similar to a land value tax), with the revenue used to finance a UBI.
John Stone
Thames Ditton, Surrey