Pension fund has £62m invested in firms potentially linked to Israeli occupation of Palestine

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

Retired and current public service workers across Gwent have some £62 million invested in companies potentially linked to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

The figure has been stated in a response to petitioners who’ve called on Torfaen Borough Council which runs the Greater Gwent (Torfaen) Pension Fund to withdraw, or divest, from firms linked to the Israeli occupation and weapons used in its war in Gaza.

The fund is a member of the Wales Pension Partnership, which currently manages more than 75 per cent of its assets, and which agreed revisions to its responsible investment policy and exclusions framework in March this year.

The revised framework took affect in April and the partnership to exclude investments in companies with material involvement in thermal coal, unconventional oil and gas, controversial weapons, and companies in breach of “global norms”, including breaches of international humanitarian law.

It applies to listed equity and bond mandates, which represent around 65 per cent of all Welsh Local Government Pensions funds and more than 80 per cent of the Greater Gwent (Torfaen) Pension Fund’s assets.

The partnership will consider expanding the scope of the framework over time, including to private market investments while the fund will review its responsible investment approach and priorities as part of its investment strategy review over the coming months.

The Welsh Partnership uses lists issued by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the American Friends Service Committee and independent research centre, Who Profits to monitor exposure to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, though it states the three are “not the sole basis for decision-making” and assessments of “direct and indirect company involvement can be complex”.

The £62m invested in companies covered by the three lists, at the end of March, represented 1.23 per cent of the Greater Gwent Fund’s total £5.05 billion investment portfolio.

Torfaen Borough Councillors agreed to provide a response setting out the information on policy and investments to the Amnesty International Monmouthshire Group and Abergavenny Palestine Solidarity Campaign which had petition the council calling for it to divest from firms “linked to genocide and apartheid in Palestine”.

A report said the £62m figure is lower than the £233m quoted in the petition citing research by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

‘Legitimate concerns’

The council’s Labour leader Anthony Hunt said the petitioners raised “legitimate concerns” and said: “But I agree with the approach to view this in the round rather than seeing one particular issue in isolation.

“I also recognise the first duty of the fund has to be provide for people who used to work for this borough.”

Reform UK member Stuart Keyte said he “echoed” the leader’s comments but was concerned at potential constraints and said: “The first priority is to provide benefits for the beneficiaries. I’m just really concerned where this ends.

“In terms of Palestine where do we go? Do we go Amazon, eBay, where do we draw the line on this? We need to run the pension fund in an ethical and constructive way, this really is a step too far trying to put constraints on trusted people that run this fund, who I believe are doing an excellent job, and the more chains we put on then the more damage we’ll do to it.”

The council agreed to provide the drafted response to the petitioners though four councillors abstained.