HC Deb 23 October 1952 vol 505 cc1262-3
55. Mr. Dodds

asked the Minister of Education the total number of retired teachers receiving pension; and on what basis she has calculated that it would cost an additional £1 million to enable those who wish to have their pension paid monthly instead of quarterly as at present.

58. Mr. George Craddock

asked the Minister of Education if she will give full details of how the extra cost of £1 million per annum for paying teachers pensions monthly instead of quarterly is made up.

60. Major Anstruther-Gray

asked the Minister of Education whether her estimate of £1 million as the extra cost involved in paying retired teachers' pensions monthly, on application, rather than quarterly, is based upon the assumption that all retired teachers would apply for this concession.

Miss Horsbrugh

The number of teacher pensioners in England and Wales at the end of last month was 73,863. The estimated additional charge which would fall on my Vote if all these teacher pensioners had their pensions paid monthly instead of quarterly would be of the order of £1 million in the year of change because in that year many of them would be receiving sums equivalent to 13 or 14 monthly payments. In addition there would be a continuing increased charge for the administration by the Paymaster-General of the greatly increased number of payments that would need to be made.

Mr. Dodds

The Minister has been talking about a shortage of teachers. Even if this were correct, does she not appreciate that the teachers' salaries are not and never have been sufficient to save enough to support them in old age; and if they are entitled to a pension, why cannot they have it monthly like other people? If she will not attend to this, how can she encourage young people to enter the teaching profession, when they are discriminated against like this?

Miss Horsbrugh

If the hon. Gentleman will look again at the scheme for teachers' pensions he will find that, in addition to the quarterly pension, when the teacher retires he or she gets a lump sum. Therefore, if they choose to use some of that lump sum in the first quarter they still continue to have a quarter's pension in advance. If the hon. Gentleman will look at it he will see that the payments are agreed by the large proportion of teachers as the best scheme, with the lump sum which does not occur in most of the other pension schemes.

Mr. Craddock

Does not the right hon. Lady think that £1 million to make out cheques and envelopes in triplicate is an excessive amount of money? Surely this might be looked into again. I agree with my hon. Friend that many teachers have little money to keep them going, and depend largely upon their pensions. Everything should be done to enable them to have their pensions monthly instead of quarterly.

Miss Horsbrugh

I quite agree, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I have looked at this very carefully. It would mean a great increase in the number of staff to deal with it. If it were not for the fact that when the teacher retires there is that lump sum there would be much more of a case for thinking that the pensioner might be out of pocket, but if we give the lump sum on retirement and then pay quarterly we can deal with these difficult cases.