§ MR. LANE-FOX (Yorkshire, W. R., Barkston Ash)To ask the President of the Board of Education whether the Teachers' Deferred Annuity Fund is entirely made up from deductions from the salaries of teachers; whether the amount of the annuities paid from the fund has been very much less per annum than the amount accruing to it from such deductions; and how the balance of the fund is being disposed of.
§ (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) The Deferred Annuity Fund is formed entirely 1368 from the contributions of teachers. The fund has only been in existence for some seven years, and the number of contributions which have been made by any individual contributor and upon which his annuity would be based is necessarily small. Moreover, as annuities are not payable till sixty-five, any teacher now receiving an annuity must have reached a comparatively advanced age before contributing to the fund. Any present comparison of the annuities paid and the contributions received must therefore be very misleading. If the fund is to be permanently solvent, the amount of the annuities paid out of it in the early years of its existence is necessarily very much less per annum than the amount accruing to it from the teachers' contributions. But the assets and liabilities of the fund are now the subject of an actuarial inquiry in accordance with the statutory provision, and the Report of this inquiry will, in due course, be laid before Parliament. The balance of the fund is invested, under Section 3 (3) of The Elementary School Teachers Superannuation) Act, 1898, by the National Debt Commissioners in any securities in which money held by the Commissioners on account of savings banks may be invested.