HC Deb 12 April 1973 vol 854 c342W
Mr. Woodhouse

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will allow school teachers who undertook war service between 1939 and 1945 to buy in their superannuation rights for their period of service at cost, that is to say, at 10 per cent. of the deemed salary plus 3½ per cent. compound interest.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

A teacher's war service, in either the 1914–18 or the 1939– 45 war, in general counts as pensionable service only if it interrupted such service. Teachers however who could demonstrate a firm intention to teach, by having been admitted, or accepted for admission, to a recognised course of teacher training before undertaking war service, may also, as a special concession, have war service counted as pensionable, subject to the payment of any necessary contributions. A person on the other hand who entered pensionable teaching service for the first time after the war, without having previously given proof of an intention to teach can have his war service counted as pensionable service only if he buys it in at its full actuarial cost, in the same way as teachers generally are now able to buy-in any period after age 20 which does not already count as pensionable teaching service. These arrangements seem to me right and fair, and I can hold out no hope of any change.