Cutting the cost of bureaucracy?
Having known someone who worked at one of the government mail opening places, basic income at least seems like a good idea to me.
You wouldn't have to pay people to deliver, open, scan the mail, assessors to process the legitimacy of those scans, decide that they're not entitled to support (as a matter of course, to add to the discouragement the system is designed to offer), deliver, open, scan and process the inevitable appeal, along with the £40 for the GP's medical assessment.
But then that's a lot of people out of a job and less tax coming in to pay for this basic income.
I suppose the cost of the bureaucracy doesn't equate to the cost of the basic income. And when you don't have to work by necessity, how many people would...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
