SCHOOL BOARD FOR LONDON (SUPERANNUATIONS) BILL.—(No. 84.) (Hansard, 17 February 1890)

§ Dr. TANNER
I must object that the Bill has not yet been printed.

§ Sir R. TEMPLE (Worcester, Evesham)
It has been printed, and this is a copy I have obtained from the Vote Office.

§ Mr. CONWAY (Leitrim, N.)
I should like to see the Bill, but it has not yet been circulated.

§ Mr. H. H. FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)
There is another question of principle that arises and may arise here- 539 after. It is an undesirable practice for an hon. Member to simply make a Motion for a Second Beading, offering not a word of explanation as to the purpose of the Bill. There were instances last Session showing the danger of legislation without discussion. It is perhaps an unfortunate operation of the 12 o'clock rule, that if after that hour any Member makes an objection the progress of a Bill is blocked, but the hon. Baronet has twenty minutes during which he may toll something about his measure. I am opposed to the principle; of pensions, and I should like to know why it is proposed to introduce a new class to be paid from the public funds. But we know absolutely nothing of the proposal.

§ (11.45.) SIR RICHARD TEMPLE
With the permission of the House perhaps I may be allowed to offer a short explanation. The object of the Bill is to obtain the security of the London rates for the paying of pensions and superannuation allowances provided by a fund derived from deductions of two per cent, from the salaries of London School Board teachers. These deductions have been almost unanimously assented to by a body of teachers nearly 7,000 in number, and quite unanimously by a body of other employés some 3,000 in number. Further arrangement has been made with the teachers whereby a second fund will be raised for the repayment of deductions to those who leave the service of the Board without sufficient length of service to entitle them to a pension. But that is a subordinate matter. The really important part of the Bill is that for the payment of these superannuation allowances deductions are made at the rate of 2 per cent, from the salaries of all teachers and also all other employés of the Board. The main difficulty has been with the teachers, but that has been fully overcome and now this measure applies to all employés, whether teachers or not. This fund thus formed by deductions from salaries amounts already to a considerable sum. We have realised from these deductions £14,000 or £15,000 a year, and the total amount collected and deposited in safe securities amounts to nearly £40,000, and will soon reach £60,000. It has been considered that this is the sum required to commence the scheme, and that the above-mentioned rate of deduction will 540 suffice, and we arrived at that conclusion in several ways. We have the experience of the Metropolitan Board of Works, who without establishing a fund on the same footing paid their superannuation allowances during a period of more than 20 years, and the result justifies our imitation of the arrangement. For had that Board instituted a fund with two per cent, deductions, it would have had a surplus in hand after discharging pensionary liabilities. Further, we have had the opinion of a first-rate actuary, Mr. Sprigg, who though he does not pronounce with us upon all points, the main drift of his opinion is to the same effect. Further, we have had considerable experience from the working of such a plan by Railway Companies. In these several ways we have arrived at the conclusion that 2 per cent deductions will cover all the superannuations which we desire to give on the scale provided in Act 29 Victoria, c. 31.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
Without any contribution from the rates?

§ SIR. R TEMPLE
Without any contribution from the rates, or any burden whatever imposed upon the ratepayers. That is an absolute condition of our arrangement. As a guarantee to our employés the Board are desirous that there should be the security of the rates, not, as we hope, that the rates will ever be trenched upon, but it is just conceivable—just possible—that there might be in a time of great necessity an advance from the rates required, but we have every hope that that will never happen, and we are convinced that ultimately no burden will fall upon the rates, and that is a sine quâ non of our arrangement. Security, however, of this absolute kind is considered necessary to give lawful stability, and hence it is we ask the assent of the House to this Bill. For the creation of the fund we have made arrangements with some 10,000 men and women, but for this security of the rates we require the sanction of Parliament. I entreat the House to look kindly and indulgently on this matter, for it is a subject of great interest to a large number of persons upon whom the strain of the work of teaching falls heavily, and who require an arrangement such as this, whereby they may have something to fall back upon when they can no longer carry on their employment 541 satisfactorily. Without such an allowance as our scheme will provide we cannot get rid of teachers—men or women—who, from failure of health, are unable to perform their arduous duties, while yet nothing can be alleged against them to justify their removal or supersession. The scheme, then, is needed both out of consideration towards the servants of the Board and for the efficiency of the Educational Service.

§ Mr. CONWAY
I cannot help expressing my surprise at the speech we have just heard. The hon. Baronet was elected to the London School Board to look after the general interests of all teachers, and not of one section only. I am also within the recollection of the House when I say that last year the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education expressed sympathy in relation to a scheme of superannuation for all teachers. If it were necessary for me to do so I could repeat the arguments in favour of that view, but perhaps there is one section of this class more deserving of public sympathy in the country than another; and if there is, that class consists of the teachers not in the Board schools, but in the voluntary schools. But the hon. Baronet has not taken into consideration at all the teachers who are outside the scope of the interests of the Board. He declares there are 7,000 teachers working under the Board; but he did not tell the House that there are also 10,000 voluntary school teachers in London; that these last are ratepayers, directly or indirectly, and that if the Board teachers have the power to fall back upon the rates to bolster up this scheme, thou 10,000 voluntary teachers will, in a small way, each contribute to pensioning off a section of their brethren. Not only so, but the Board teachers are the best paid set of teachers in the country. Did time allow, I could obtain from the last Report of the Committee of Council on Education the figures that bear upon this, from which it would be seen that a very big percentage of the teachers in the voluntary schools in the country receive less than £150 a year; that a large proportion receive less than £100, and some less than £50. These are the people whom we ought to look to after they come to old age, having served the country during the best years of their 542 lives. I was reading lately in the first number of the Review of Reviews the article addressed by the editor to "All English speaking folk," in which he speaks of the influence of education, and the influence he would bring to bear on the good fortunes of the Empire, as work as worthy of national expenditure as the Army and Navy; and he dwells on the magnitude and importance of the work of equipping the individual citizen for his share of responsibility, and he goes on to say that no amount of money in achieving that result would be badly spent. The training of youth to become citizens is also a most important work. Yet I am sorry to say the machinery that produced such great results in the way of the diminution of crime and making the youths of our country better citizens—this machinery is lost sight of. I am sure, in regard to this question of superannuation, that if from the State surplus we could set aside some two or three millions, and make that the basis of such a scheme, we could not make a better investment. But here we have the hon. Baronet taking the best paid teachers in the country as the recipients of superannuation allowances. I know there are many of these receiving £400 a year or more, and I know one gentleman whose wife receives £250 a year. He is opposed to this scheme, because he is in favour of a general scheme from which his less fortunate brethren in London and the country shall not be excluded. But here we have an hon. Gentleman, pledged to stand up for voluntary schools, coming to the House and asking us to select those teachers in London who are best paid, and give, to them only, superannuation allowances. I hope the House will not assent to the second reading of a Bill containing such a proposal for those who do not form a moiety of the whole of the teaching class in London. If you pass this Bill the necessary result will be that you will have the school boards of Manchester, of Sheffield, and of Birmingham coming here with their Bills, and you must recognise their claim. It happens that the London School Board is a rich Corporation, and they can fall back upon the rates without any perceptible increase in the rates to individual ratepayers. But in Manchester, in Sheffield, in Birmingham, or in Liverpool, the Boards 543 must fall back upon the rates, with the result that the latter will be materially affected, and instead of the school boards being the popular bodies they are now considered, they will become unpopular, and people who now advocate them will rise against them. The hon. Baronet has been identified with the voluntary system; but yet he is now identifying himself in this Bill with the School Board he has stigmatised in his speeches. Since October, as he knows, I have been engaged in a paper warfare with Board teachers on this subject, with the result that the assistant masters of the Board have passed a resolution asking me to advocate a general scheme of superanmiation. The hon. Baronet has not been able to get the adhesion of the School Board teachers to his scheme, except through the pressure of the Board, and not until engagements of teachers had been cancelled, and new engagements were put before them which they were compelled to sign under threat of losing their position. Now this amount of £60,000 is altogether mythical. When a scheme was brought forward for teachers in Ireland the sum of £1,300,000 was required.