JUST as Jeremy Corbyn was announcing and un-announcing his idea of a cap on high earnings, new figures emerged from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) to show that income inequality in the UK is now at its lowest for 30 years.

They show that, contrary to popular belief, last year the median disposable income in the poorest fifth of households was up by more than five per cent (£700) while the richest fifth lost nearly two per cent (£1,000).

It is true that the gap in original income is considerable (£85,000 for the richest fifth and £7,000 for the poorest) but this multiple of 12 falls to 10 when benefits and direct taxes are taken into account.

The big winners in the last 10 years are pensioners, with a 13 per cent hike in household income thanks to a guaranteed minimum annual increase of 2.5 per cent in the state pension. Big losers were higher-earning parents of school age children when the universal child benefit was capped at £50,000. In other words, wealth is being redistributed.

Against this background, there has been a flurry of publicity about another universal benefit, the Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme, involving an unconditional state wage for all to replace benefits and tackle poverty, which is championed by Glasgow Labour councillor Mark Kerr, supported by the SNP, and likely to be tested in Glasgow and Fife this year.

Already being piloted in the Netherlands, the big advantage is that it promises to sweep away the vast bureaucracy needed to administer a benefits system based on means testing.

The obvious drawbacks are, first, that it could be an incentive for laziness because the recipients don’t have to do anything to be paid and, secondly, that it hands state cash to people who don’t need it.

We have had the same arguments for years now over free bus passes, prescriptions and tuition fees which benefit people with healthy incomes as well as the less well-off.

I know of one well-off chap whose disposable income has shot up because he now travels to work free on the bus while his privately-educated sons enjoy free university places.

It is also argued that UBI would allow people to be choosier about the work they accept, so employers would be forced to improve their terms to attract recruits. Which sounds fine except it would push up prices which would hit the poor hardest.

The other problem with UBI is that, if everyone qualifies, it doesn’t tackle relative poverty which receives so much political attention, precisely because it takes the argument away from the real, but gradual, improvements being made.

No matter how high any UBI level is set it will make no difference to the pay gap or the basic left-wing argument that one person should not earn vastly more than another.

The latest giveaway is the baby box, a case of 40 essentials for every new mum which is being tested in Clackmannan and Orkney and, when rolled out across Scotland, will cost £6 million a year.

The scheme was launched in Finland in 1938 at a time when infant mortality was running at 65 per 1,000 and, even though no proper evaluation was carried out, it is credited with helping to bring the death rate down to 2.5 at present compared to a Scottish rate of just below four.

As a father of three I’m the first to say that just one infant death is a tragedy and everything possible should be done to prevent such occurrences but the Scottish and Finnish schemes differ in that the Scottish scheme is designed to encourage families to engage with health services while in Finland it’s a condition; so it is not something for nothing.

Why the same condition can’t be attached to the Scottish scheme isn’t clear, especially as it’s quality parental care in the crucial first few years that really matters long after the box has gone to recycling.

It’s in stark contrast to the Scottish Government’s dogmatic approach to the troubled Named Person scheme for young people, from which there was no escape even if the parents were, say, a high-earning, Labour-supporting doctor and his author wife. No need for lessons on the benefits of bedtime stories in the Rowling household, I imagine.

The satin-edged blankets, ear thermometers and the rest of the contents of the baby box should be the incentive to sign up to a cradle-to-school gate programme which makes sure that those who need help really give their kids the best start.

Wouldn’t that be a better way to improve life-chances for those at the bottom than throwing money at the comfortable?