Teachers (Retirement) (Hansard, 8 June 1976)

§ 14. Mrs. Chalker
asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will consider a voluntary early retirement scheme for teachers.

§ Mr. Mulley
Proposals tabled by the teachers' association for voluntary retirement on pension at 55 were recently considered in the Teachers Superannuation Working Party, but discussion on them has been deferred.

§ Mrs. Chalker
When does the right hon. Gentleman expect those discussions to be completed? Does he agree that if older teachers wish to retire early, some unemployed teachers could, if the right hon. Gentleman got a move on, be taking up these posts in September?

§ Mr. Mulley
In the first instance the negotiations are between the employers—the local authorities—and teachers' unions. We seek to keep the arrangements in line with those for other local 1191 government employees. The question is whether it should be a voluntary retirement scheme or a matter of compensation for premature retirement, which is the normal practice for local government staff. I want to see whether there is a possibility of an early retirement scheme, but I would not think this is the only way of dealing with the difficulties that we have at present.

§ Mr. van Straubenzee
Is not one of the additional reasons for seeking to press on with the scheme the fact that many of the teachers now coming out of colleges of education are of a particularly good standard, which makes it doubly regrettable that they cannot immediately be employed? Is there not much advantage in a scheme to improve the quality of the teaching force in the way suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker)?

§ Mr. Mulley
The question is whether the local authorities or the teachers should be able to take advantage of such provisions. It is right that the negotiations now being undertaken should be allowed to continue. On the question of employing teachers from training colleges. I agree that it is highly desirable that local authorities should fill all possible vacancies with young teachers, and not, as so often in the past, by taking people who have left teaching and gone to jobs in other industries, but who come back because the conditions are so much better than they were three or four years ago.