UNIVERSAL basic income (UBI) is “not a panacea” and would come with “significant risk,” delegates at the PCS conference warned yesterday.

The policy has gained significant support and interest among trade unions over the past few years, with general unions Unite and GMB both endorsing it at their conferences last year.

It would involve a unconditional, non-withdrawable payment to everyone as a partial replacement for means-tested benefits.

But the Civil Service union, which represents thousands of benefit clerks, passed a motion warning that without both “major public expenditure” and “mass campaigning and popular support” the policy could be realised as “a right-wing version far worse than [the social security system] we have now.”

PCS vice-president John McInally said the complexity of the benefits system “would not disappear if UBI was introduced in its current model.”

He said there was a “considerable danger” that the debate on UBI could distract the left from creating a benefits system to support an agenda of equality.

“Many of [UBI’s] supporters are actually right-wing libertarians who want to dismantle the welfare state,” he added.

The union also reaffirmed its opposition to benefit sanctions, and passed a motion agreeing to continue its work with organisations including Unite Community, Black Triangle, Benefits Justice and Disabled People Against Cuts.

North Yorkshire delegate Mark Ellison described sanctions as “draconian and irrational, not to mention pointless and sadistic.”

Delegates resolved to “continue to give support to members threatened with disciplinary action by management for not showing sufficient enthusiasm in imposing sanctions.”