§ 59. Sir P. HARRISasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether the new scale of pensions will apply to all teachers who retired between the date of the salary cuts and their full restoration and whether they will all get the advantage of the new scale of pensions' after July, 1935?
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION(Mr. Ramsbotham)The answer to both parts of the question is in the affirmative. Under the Superannuation Act teachers' pensions are based on the average salary they receive during the last five years of their service, and any reduction in salary during this period is automatically reflected in their pensions. Teachers who have retired or will retire during the period between the dates of the reduction in salary and its restoration in full suffer a loss in pension which amounts in certain cases to 6½ per cent., but the effect of the Government's proposal is that no retired teacher will after 1stJuly lose more than 2 per cent. of the pension to which he would have been entitled had there been no cut in salary. The cost of this proposal to the Government is approximately 81,000,000,which is roughly equivalent to what the Government would have had to expend on teachers' superannuation had there 1136 been no cuts in salary. To have restored the pension reductions in full and to have made that restoration retrospective would have involved the collection of increased contributions from all teachers and their employers on the basis indicated in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Fairfield (Mr. Brocklebank) on the 12th July last. The difficulties in this direction have proved to be insuperable, and I have already informed the House that the present proposal has been welcomed by the teachers' representatives as an agreed and final solution of the matter.
§ Mr. PETHERICKCan the hon. Member say over what period this figure will be spread?
§ Mr. RAMSBOTHAMAbout 14years.