Nearly 90 members of the Hertfordshire Local Government Pension Scheme have written to those responsible, objecting to the fact that their pension savings are being invested in companies that are implicated in grave human rights abuses against Palestinians.
The joint letter was sent this week to members of the Hertfordshire County Council Pensions Committee, which is responsible for overseeing the pension scheme. It was also copied to the HCC Head of Pensions and members of the Local Pension Board, whose role is to represent employers and scheme members.
The letter pointed out that the pension scheme currently holds around £95 million of investments in seven companies that are directly complicit in grave abuses including illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide. That includes investments in RTX Corp, a US arms firm that supplies Israel with missiles used in the Gaza genocide, and Booking Holdings Inc, which is blacklisted by the UN for advertising holiday rentals in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The scheme members pointed out that the policies governing their pension specify that human rights will be treated as a priority consideration in investment; and where companies don’t respond to engagement over ethical concerns, as is the case here, the policy provides for ending investments. They noted that inaction on these human rights commitments contrasts with efforts that have rightly been made to implement environmental commitments that are also built into the policies governing the pension scheme.
The scheme members called on the Pensions Committee to pass a motion at its next meeting in December, publicly committing to take all reasonable measures within its power to seek divestment from firms implicated in these grave abuses.
Herts Palestine Support Coalition 
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