Social Credits are already in use in the UK

 My mum enjoyed her 90th birthday last December. She’s led what many would consider a good life; worked hard, saved a bit here and there, and brought up me and my sister. A few months ago it became apparent that she couldn’t manage any more in her shared-equity ‘retired person’s’  bungalow, and moved into a care home.

My sister and I have Power of Attorney, and we’ve been helping her manage her affairs. The sale of her old bungalow back to the local council went through in February, so we looked around for ideas on what to do with the proceeds - a small six figure sum. 

Mum had an ISA at her bank which had built up to a good five figure sum, but otherwise no savings accounts. This included National Savings, which surprised me, for I thought everyone had one or two Premium Bonds, but I didn’t worry: my thoughts were that we should use her ISA allowance every year, and buy her the maximum amount of Premium Bonds (£50K), where her interest, or prizes, would be tax free. 

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It was when we tried to buy Premium Bonds for her that the trouble started. Mum needed to provide the standard id to NS&I: passport and council tax bill, for instance. But she’s 90; her passport expired eight years ago, and her driving licence fifteen years earlier. She doesn’t pay council tax at her current address (care home residents don’t). She doesn’t receive anything by way of official bills - only her bank statements, which go to my sister's address.

To cut a long story short, none of the id we could provide to NS&I - care home invoice, bank statement, solicitor letter - met their id requirements. She has been told she cannot have Premium Bonds. 

We’ll put the money instead into Building Society accounts offering good rates of interest, but she’ll have to pay tax on it (and I’ll have to do the returns). 

She should have been able to enjoy £50,000 worth of Premium Bond winnings tax free, but, because of her circumstances, she can’t. I’d argue that is a clear case of discrimination on grounds of age and disability. 

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The root of the problem is that my mum doesn’t have very good identity data. She has recently changed address; her tax documents from last year have the wrong address on them; she is probably not on the electoral roll at her new address; her bank statements don’t go to the property where she resides (they go to my sister’s - we didn’t want them, and perhaps debit cards, going to a care home where who-knows-who might intercept them), she doesn’t have any borrowings - so her credit scores are probably rock bottom. 

We did send NS&I some documents that seemed to match their approved list (https://www.nsandi.com/help/join-nsandi/evidence-of-identity ) - a benefits agency letter and one from the care home,which, initially, they seemed happy with, but apparently, when it came to their ‘security’ team, they said ‘no’. 

To complicate matters, my sister and my mum have the same initial, and (of course) my sister’s maiden name is my mum’s surname. The bank account address being my sister’s might cause confusion in the credit agency data; the fact that my mum has a valid NI number, and bank account, distinct from my sister’s may not be enough to convince the folks at NS&I that she is a separate individual, entitled to lend her government tens of thousands of pounds to help it get out of the mess it is in.  

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It would, of course, be much easier if my mum had the ‘standard’ id. I can just imagine thirty-somethings at NS&I sitting around a (virtual) meeting table (while they work their four-day-weeks from home) agreeing that it's perfectly reasonable to expect everyone to have photo id, and to send it to NS&I - by registered mail - to prove their identity. (You used to be able to open NS&I accounts at a post office, of course, now you can only do it remotely.) Well here are some observations on the challenges the elderly face with photo id:

• Driving licence - once you stop driving you probably won’t renew it. Even if you do, when you reach the point that you are medically unfit to drive - which my mum most certainly is - you aren’t entitled to hold one, not even one that confirms your id but says you have no entitlement to drive. The normal way to apply is online; even if my mum were able to drive the chances of her getting through the whole process online is surely close to zero. 

• Passport - again, once you pass the age when you want to travel you will let your passport expire. You might renew it ‘just in case’, or you might think of doing so to be sure you have photo id - but, with a passport costing upwards of £80, this is an expensive option. It also seems that people are encouraged to apply online.

• Voter id card - this is a new idea, and is free - but requires a photo and online application. It's not clear that it will be accepted by banks and the likes of NS&I.

• Bus pass - my mum has one, but it’s not on the approved list of NS&I documents

Even getting a suitable photo might be a challenge: I could take a photo of her and try to get it to match the requirements, but we all know what passport photo rules are like. I can’t easily do for my mum what I did last time I renewed my passport: go off to the post office in a nearby town and get them to photograph me. (My mum can’t walk more than a few yards, and getting her in a car is exceptionally tricky.) In short, my mum has got to the point in life where she is unable to meet the identity requirements to be entitled to open National Savings accounts (including Premium Bonds). 

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The Chinese are known to refer to disabled people as ‘crippled and useless’: from what I’ve seen, that attitude has spread westwards at least to National Savings. This is not good for any of us, for we shall all be old or disabled at some point, and may live for many months or years without things we now take for granted. 

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There has been talk of ‘digital id’ in the UK for a number of years - I believe it was that luminary, Antony Blair, who was British Prime Minister when they were first proposed. They were thrown out then as being a bad idea, but now they are back - the ‘Data Protection and Digital Information (No.2) Bill’ has recently had its first reading. 

The gov.uk webpage (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/digital-identity ) on the topic is full of enthusiastic words about scanning passports and simplifying job application processes, but it rather misses the point. What will happen to those who can’t use digital id - will they become like anyone who can’t get the right documentation for NS&I, and miss out on some form of benefits? What about those who do not have digital technology - smartphones, cameras and computers? Will they just be considered to be ‘crippled and useless’? And what will happen if your ‘digital identity’ information is wrong, or if it gets hijacked by criminals - which is more likely to happen to the elderly and less alert?

It seems to be no use talking about equality or discrimination. Those words took on new meanings a few years ago, when discrimination on grounds of disability or age ceased to be as important as disability on grounds of sexual inclination or gender identity. Indeed, anyone over the age of 50 can probably record occurrences of discrimination on grounds of age, especially in the workplace, where people with ‘new ideas’ are so often preferred. 

The powers that be in the British Government seem determined to press on, and those in that (virtual) meeting at NS&I are doing their bidding. That elderly people can’t buy Premium Bonds because they don’t have the right id is probably a good thing to them; they no doubt want to incentivise the right behaviour, to encourage us all to keep and be able to produce the right id. The Party (as in George Orwell’s 1984) would be pleased, and proud of those individuals at NS&I and other British government agencies who think up new ways of encouraging the rest of us to ‘do the right thing’. Who knows, they may well be honoured with a 'two-minute applause'.

And, yes, we are now at the stage where we have to do the right thing, to have the right thing to be able to benefit from a particular service. Like it or not we are already controlled by means of Social Credit, and many people - particularly those we should most care about - are inevitably losing out.