It’s clear that the recommendations before us are not about BDS or divestment. I’m sorry if talk of divestment has caused any misunderstanding or confusion or raised unrealistic expectations about what decision is before us. It’s not about 'Do we divest from particular companies or a country?' Its about 'Do we engage further on human rights abuse allegations from very credible sources?'
The reason why it’s coming here today is because that’s what the last committee voted unanimously to do. We wanted a report on these issues. They've been coming up at committee from all kinds of directions - members of the public, members of the fund - and its only right and proper that a decision is made to investigate it further.
It could even be quite problematic to decide to exclude companies from our existing responsible investment policy we have. This is about Environmental Social and Governance issues. Its not about BDS. Those [ESG] criteria should be applied equally and evenly to all companies that the pension fund invests in.
Companies don’t have a nationality. If the Pension Fund invests in them, its because they are a plc or equivalent. Their shares come from all over the world, from all different kinds of institutional and other investors in companies. Companies don’t have a nationality that way.
What we do have, with our fiduciary duty, is to make sure that the Pension Fund members receive a decent pension and that their views are taken into account about how we do that. We have received a lot of communications recently, as Pension Committee members. Many members of Merseyside Pension Fund want us to divest immediately from the nine companies have come to attention first. We’ve had communication from UNISON branches - Wirral, Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley - from Unite the Union and dozens of individual members. It isn't going to be possible to divest or to change our investments at this meeting.
All that’s being asked for is very reasonable and sensible thing which is to investigate it further, to look into these allegations, to see if they’ve changed. We might get replies back from companies - maybe they'll want to share them publicly. The replies might say they’re withdrawing from the alleged activities.
It just happens that these companies have come to our attention first. I’m sure - and recommendations will mandate - that other areas of conflict around the world are being investigated, companies are engaged with. As a Pension Fund, our responsibility is to do proper due diligence on those companies. We should be doing that anywhere in the world whether it’s China against the Uyghur or Myanmar against the Rohingya population.
It pains me that we are looking at the only Jewish state in the world. It pains me because I’m Jewish and I have friends and family in Israel. We do need to be treating all areas of conflict around the world equally.
But we also should not be excluding Israel from standard measures of human rights and proper company behaviour, just because it’s Israel. We should not be waiting before we’ve done it [due diligence] to every company before we do it on some companies. Just as we don’t wait in other parts of the ESG policy. We look at climate change or tobacco or whatever. We deal with things as and when they arise.
A couple more points. We are not here to go ahead with our Party position or our personal position. We are here to mind the Pension Fund money of the pension fund members. That’s our fiduciary duty. Its our responsibility. Not the responsibility of the Secretary of State or government or other stakeholders. Although we can hear what people are saying.
I am concerned that Councillor Kenny has already stated how he will vote without listening to the full debate. He has referred to the whip also. I think we should be considering decisions based on all the relevant evidence before us and making our minds up at the end of the debate.
Obviously, parts of this debate will continue regardless of what we decide, in a way. I hope that more information comes to a future meeting as the recommendations say. We also have to consider the impact that our decisions have on community cohesion. Our decisions on this issue will affect Jewish communities. They'll also affect Arabic communities and Palestinian communities in the UK and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. So all those factors need to be taken into account as well. Basically the recommendations are very sensible and will provide us with the information to make a more fully informed decision at a future Pensions Committee.