Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department has made any assessment of the effect on development of basic income trials taking place in Namibia.

DFID supports cash transfer and broader social protection programmes in 16 of our bilateral country programmes, as well as in countries in the Sahel and Middle East and North Africa regions. We work with partner governments to help build sustainable social protection systems that are appropriate to the local context. Basic income as a type of social protection is a relatively new policy idea in application to developing countries. We are aware of previous and on-going pilots, and will consider the evidence for poverty reduction and sustainable economic growth as it emerges.