University Teachers' Pensions and War Service (Hansard, 6 April 1982)

§ Baroness Wootton of Abinger
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Elton)
My Lords, for those university teachers whose careers were interrupted by the war, or who entered university teaching within 12 months of demobilisation, their war service counts in full for pension purposes. For others who became teachers after service in the armed forces of the Crown, and before 30th June 1950, their war service counts at half-rate. Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that the war service of university teachers 115 ought to be recognised for pension purposes on terms broadly comparable with those for all other public servants; and that is the present position.

§ Baroness Wootton of Abinger
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer, and I wonder whether he will allow me to ask him two further questions. Is he really satisfied regarding the deprivation that is now suffered by senior academic personnel who at the beginning of the war were preparing for academic posts, threw up everything to join the forces, served throughout the war, and often suffered delayed demobilisation, with the result that they could not comply with the requirement that they should obtain a new academic post by June 1950? Secondly, is he aware of the extraordinary anomalies that are arising under the administration of the present rules? For instance, when a conscientious objector registered, he was directed to alternative service and received full credit for his years in that service, while a senior professor, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, served for four years as a volunteer in the Navy, and, through being four months too late in obtaining an academic appointment, received nothing.
Is the noble Lord aware of an even more extraordinary example? We have on record a case concerning a person, now a British citizen by naturalisation, who was a citizen of an enemy country during the war and was engaged in armaments research in that country. He has been credited with those years of service, while a university teacher in this country—

§ Baroness Wootton of Abinger
My Lords, I am merely asking whether the Minister is aware of this. This is the last example that I should like the Minister to note. Is the Minister aware that the case to which I have just referred is contrasted with the case of someone in this country who was in university employment, was drafted to the Ministry of Supply to do research on armaments, and receives no credit at all?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, by way of preface to my reply I ought to explain that the provision in the scheme was intended by Parliament to apply to those people whose chosen career was either interrupted or deferred involuntarily by service in the armed forces of the Crown during the Second World War. A chosen career can be identified only when a person becomes committed to it, and the first hard evidence of such commitment is normally the first job in it. However, there are occasions when the preparation for a career can be directed only to that career and commitment to a career starts with a preparation for it. But you cannot say that of a university teaching career because there is no training which is specific to the career of being a teacher in a university and which cannot be otherwise employed.
The noble Baroness cited a series of cases which have been raised outside this Chamber. It is not proper for me to reply to individual cases, but I can say that university teachers are in the same position as members of other public service pension schemes. No conscientious objector can receive the half-rate war service credit as a post-war entrant to university teaching 116 because he has not been in the armed forces. The conscientious objector in question would either have been in university teaching before the war or would have entered such teaching immediately afterwards on the basis of qualifications obtained during the war. He would thus have had his career interrupted or deferred. In such circumstances he would receive a full war service credit only if he had been directed to work of national importance contributing to the war effort.
To pick only one other of the noble Baroness's illustrations, I know, and the department knows, of no evidence that any enemy armaments worker, as she termed it, is in receipt of this pension, and cannot conceive how that could be. We have searched for evidence, and if the noble Baroness has it I should like to see it. Otherwise, I shall treat the case as apocryphal.

§ Lord Mackie of Benshie
My Lords, does the noble Lord not negate his own argument by allowing half-service for war years pre-training entry? Surely, if you do that the noble Baroness's argument applies. They did not waste but lost those very valuable years just as much as people who interrupted their university teaching.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, as I said in my original Answer, the scheme is intended to be on all fours with schemes for other people serving in the public service. That condition applies to them, and was extended to the university teachers last year.

§ Lord Ashby
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that this cut-off date of 1st July threatened also the opportunities for some school teachers to receive the benefits of their war service? Is he further aware that in order to meet that circumstance in 1975 the cut-off date for those who were intending to become schoolteachers but who were not yet in jobs because they do not begin until September, was changed to the 30th September? Would the noble Lord agree that an advance of no more than 24 hours in that cut-off date to the 1st October 1950 will go a long way towards resolving this disgraceful lack of appreciation of the war service done by a good many university teachers?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, the distinction between the training of a teacher who takes a certificate of education, as it was, or a diploma of education and a teacher in a university is that the certificate or diploma is of use to him only in teaching, and he has therefore been committed to a career in teaching from the beginning of his training. A university teacher with a university degree can apply it in a whole spectrum of other employments. That is why there is that distinction. As to the question of moving the date by 24 hours, that is an interesting proposition which I shall look at.

§ Lord Ashby
My Lords, I hope that in doing this the noble Lord will also bear in mind, if I may ask him to do so, the fact that not everybody who takes a course in teacher training becomes a teacher, just as not everybody who gets a higher degree becomes a university teacher.

§ Lord Elton
Indeed, my Lords, but a certificate or diploma of the ability to teach is not as widely useful 117 in seeking employment as a degree of bachelor or master of the arts, for instance.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, would the Minister not agree, though, that there is discrimination? There are other professions which have advantages that universitity teachers do not have. Under local government and the National Health Service superannuation schemes, staffs still in training for those services at the 30th June and subsequently entering the appropriate service were eligible for concessionary war service arrangements towards pensionable service. Why is there not a similar arrangement for university teachers?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, the same applies to them as applies to teachers. In local government it is a qualification for this exemption for public health inspectors to have taken training for the Royal Sanitary Institute Diploma. It is to those, I presume, that the noble Baroness refers. Similarly, in the National Health Service specialist training courses for qualification in medicine and dentistry, including courses for professions supplementary to medicine, clearly qualify people to pursue only those professions.

§ Baroness Wootton of Abinger
My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he would look into similar provisions that are made in a number of friendly countries in the EEC, which I think he will find are a great deal more liberal?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I am not answerable for what happens abroad but I am interested in what the noble Baroness says.

§ Lord Balogh
My Lords, does the Minister realise that the repudiation of tenure introduces into our universities a totalitarian scheme which ought to be resisted?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I much regret that I could not get the drift of the question that the noble Lord was asking me.