HC Deb 28 July 1879 vol 248 cc1517-9

Considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, of any deficiency in the Pension Fund which may arise in the repayment to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt of any Advances made by them for the purposes of any Act of the present Session for improving the position of the Teachers of National Schools in Ireland.

MR. CHILDERS

said, a question of considerable interest arose in connection with this subject; and although it was too late to enter upon its discussion he should only be doing right to call the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury thereto. It was proposed to charge this deficiency upon the Consolidated Fund. The Bill supposed that there should be formed a compensation fund, out of certain monies coming from the Irish Church Fund, to the extent of £13,000, and that certain contributions should also come from the salaries of the National School teachers, and upon the fund so created should be charged pensions to the school teachers, according to a scale set out in the Act. The Resolution was necessary to enable any excess of calls upon the pension fund to be defrayed, from time to time, out of the public funds. But he wanted, to point out, assuming that the proposal was sound—and upon that point he did not think it right to express any opinion on that occasion—that it was, in his view, essential that the actual expenditure for these pensions should in form be charged in the Votes of Parliament. It would be altogether abnormal and incorrect that gentlemen who had been school teachers should receive pensions except out of the same fund in form from which their salaries came. The Estimates should contain the whole charge for Irish National Schools—salaries, contingencies, and pensions. The same course ought to be followed in this case as was followed in the Greenwich Hospital Act, relating to seamen of the Navy—that policy being perfectly sound and exactly analogous to the present proposal. It was on that occasion arranged that the pensions should, in substance, be charged upon the Seamen's Fund; but in form they were charged upon the Votes of Parliament, re-payment being made out of the fund to meet the Votes. He, therefore, thought that the Resolution should be "that the deficiency should be charged on the Votes of Parliament."

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

would rather postpone the Resolution to another day, in order to consult with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had had the question under his consideration. He quite saw the force of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. COURTNEY

hoped, if any deficiency occurred in the pension fund, that when the question came to be discussed the House would be furnished with more exact information upon sub- jects concerning which they were now completely in the dark.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.