What’s the problem?
Hertfordshire County Council administers the Hertfordshire Pension Fund, which is part of the Local Government Pension Scheme and serves thousands of local government employees across the county.
Information about how Hertfordshire County Council invests the pension fund in companies complicit in war crimes, apartheid and occupation is available via LGPS Divest. As of early 2025, the LGPS Divest database recorded that Hertfordshire County Council has £94,970,361 invested in complicit companies.
That includes the following:
- £7,718,195 invested in RTX Corporation, a US arms firm that supplies Israel with missiles used in the Gaza genocide
- £4,851,120 invested in Booking Holdings Inc, which allows Israelis to advertise rental accommodation in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank
- £4,016,106 invested in Hyundai, which supplies Israel with heavy machinery used to destroy Palestinian homes, agriculture & water structures in the illegally-occupied Palestinian Territories
- £15,805,041 invested in Alphabet Inc, which supplies cloud computing & other technologies to the Israeli military
- £9,205,054 invested in Barclays, which provides billions of dollars in financial services to arms firms supplying the Israeli military
- £44,073,923 invested in Amazon, which provides cloud computing infrastructure for the Israeli military
- £9,300,922 invested in Mitsubishi, whose vehicles have been used in the demolition of Palestinian homes in the illegally-occupied Palestinian Territories
What can councillors do?
In 1981, Sheffield City Council became the first local authority to pledge that it would cut ties with Apartheid South Africa. By 1985, more than 120 councils had taken some form of anti-apartheid action. We are seeing a similar inflection point today.
A growing number of other councils across the country are taking decisive action to support divestment from companies complicit in Israel’s war crimes, apartheid and occupation. Hertfordshire County Council must do the same.
Hertfordshire councillors have in the past suggested that they are largely powerless on such issues. However, the fact is that they absolutely do have the power to act.
Other councils – in full council sessions – have passed motions formally referring divestment petitions like ours to their Pension Committee and expressing support for ending investments in companies complicit in war crimes, apartheid and illegal occupation. Copies of motions passed by councils and pension funds – including Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Islington, Lewisham, Manchester City, Bristol City, North Somerset, Sandwell, Dudley and Oxford City – are available here.
A legal opinion recently commissioned by the Local Government Association confirmed that those responsible for investing a Local Government Pension Scheme fund (i.e. councillors on the Pension Committee) certainly can take ethical considerations into account “provided that doing so would not involve significant risk of financial detriment to the scheme and where they have good reason to think that scheme members would support their decision”. It also confirmed that they should be consulting with scheme members about such matters, including their representative bodies such as trade unions.
In June 2025, UNISON Hertfordshire – which represents HCC employees – passed a motion formally calling for the HCC pension fund to “begin the process of divestment from companies complicit in Israel’s war crimes, including companies supplying weapons, components, and military technology to Israel”. If councillors on the Pensions Committee refuse to take steps towards divestment, they will be acting in defiance of the main body representing members of the pension scheme whose interests they are supposed to defend.
The same legal advice commissioned by the Local Government Association noted that councillors on the Pension Committee must engage with the views of scheme members in good faith and “need to be careful not… to fall into the trap of giving effect to their own views about what is morally or socially right”. Hypothetically, one can imagine a councillor who might be dismissive of the findings of the International Court of Justice, senior UN experts and the world’s leading human rights organisations on the illegality of Israel’s longstanding treatment of Palestinians, including in regard to the issues of apartheid, war crimes and genocide. In such a case, she or he would not have the right to prioritise their own opinion over scheme members’ recognition of the need to avoid complicity in severe, longstanding, well-documented human rights violations.
In fact, the Hertfordshire Pension Fund already has a Responsible Investment Policy which identifies four priorities: climate change; waste and pollution; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and human rights. This supposed commitment to human rights is absolutely incompatible with the Fund’s current investments, including in firms that supply weapons used in the Gaza genocide, that equip a military that the International Court of Justice has confirmed is imposing a 58-year illegal occupation and system of apartheid on more than 5 million Palestinians, and that operate in illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land.
The Responsible Investment Policy says the Pension Committee prefers to engage with companies about ethical concerns rather than end investments. However, the companies in question have been engaged with for many years, including via sustained civil society campaigns; yet they have continued to enable these grave abuses, including illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide. Giving these companies more time before beginning divestment simply rewards their lack of action.
In cases where engagement does not result in ethical concerns being addressed, as is clearly the case here, Paragraphs 4.6 and 4.8 of the Responsible Investment Policy provide for divestment. Paragraph 4.6 says, “In the event that engagement is not effective the Hertfordshire Pension Fund will consider divestment from an individual stock, where agreed with the relevant investment manager that this is appropriate. If this Fund cannot reach agreement with the investment manager on a stewardship issue, it may be appropriate to divest from the manager.”
If the Responsible Investment Policy is anything more than words on paper, the Pension Committee must formally, publicly commit to working towards ending these investments.
While at least some of the Hertfordshire Pension Fund’s assets are invested in a pool, along with assets from other pension funds, that also does not preclude action. Nor does it reduce councillors’ responsibility to act. Under such circumstances, ultimate responsibility for where the fund is invested still lies with the councillors on the Pension Committee. Each pension fund invested in the pool can request that it take steps to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s violations of international law. The Hertfordshire County Council Pension Committee can make a public commitment, through a motion, to argue for divestment with the other funds in the pool.
Again, other councils have taken decisive action on this issue. If Hertfordshire County Council continues to invest in war crimes, apartheid and occupation, without taking steps to remedy that situation, then this is not an unfortunate but unavoidable eventuality; it is a choice that our councillors are making, in defiance of the Responsible Investment Policy governing the pension scheme.
Herts Palestine Support Coalition 