§ Mr. Cockcroftasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science, in the light of the fact that it is her policy that teachers forcibly retired at 50 years of age will be able to claim their full pension, if she will review arrangements for those retiring voluntarily in their late fifties because of ill health, who do not receive the same benefit.
§ Miss Margaret Jackson:The proposed arrangements will allow for the payment of accrued superannuation benefits to teachers aged 50 and over who have completed at least five years' reckonable service and who are made redundant or retired early in the interests of the efficient exercise of the employing authority's functions. A teacher's pension is determined by the number of years' service completed at the date of cessation of 821W employment. Under the new arrangements provision will also be made for the supplementation, at the discretion of the employer, of those superannuation payments, but it will not follow that this provision for enhancement will necessarily give them, in aggregate, benefits as large as the payments for which they would have qualified had they continued in employment until normal retirement age.
Provision already exists for the payment and enhancement of superannuation benefits to teachers under 60 who become permanently incapable through ill health of serving efficiently as a teacher. My right hon. Friend does not intend to extend the proposed arrangements to cover voluntary premature retirement.