The council agreed to divest its pension fund from companies linked to the arms trade after a special meeting with Waltham Forest for a Free Palestine (WF4FP) in July, reports Sebastian Mann, Local Democracy Reporter
Waltham Forest Council says it must first define the arms trade before it can divest its pension fund from companies linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The council agreed to pull its funds after a special meeting with Waltham Forest for a Free Palestine (WF4FP) in July.
Councillors then warned the process would be “slow” and the authority has made little material progress since, as it navigates definitions and financial repercussions.
Officers have been speaking with a King’s Counsel and are seeking financial guidance. Councillors say they are reluctant to move ahead without a clearer picture of how it could impact the coffers.
During a meeting last night (17th September), councillor Jenny Gray said: “We need to wait for advice. We need to do this properly, because we don’t want anything to go wrong.”
She added: “None of these things are quick.”
Israel has been at war with Gaza’s governing body Hamas since it was attacked last October. More than 40,000 Gazans have been killed in the conflict so far, according to figures published by the polity’s health ministry.
The council does not oversee pension investments itself and instead relies on the London Collective Investment Vehicle (LCIV), which oversees all 32 councils’ pensions and invests them into various markets.
Two potential ‘exclusionary policies’ were presented to the committee by strategic resources director Rob Manning.
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The first, used by the city-based Newton Investment Management, rules out investing in the manufacturers of “controversial weapons” and those that derive more than 10% of their revenue from the production of “conventional weapons”.
Similar guidelines have been adopted by Nordea Asset Management, which excludes companies “involved in serious breaches of international norms” and the active production of controversial weapons.
Munitions such as chemical weapons, biological weapons, anti-personnel mines, and lasers capable of blinding people were listed by both firms as controversial.
Committee chair Johar Khan said the council should push for legal advice so it would “have a more informed choice on which way to go”.
The resources director said he was expecting to hear back “within the next week”. He told the committee he would ensure they had clearer definitions by the next meeting, in November.
Waltham Forest currently uses both definitions for its own investments, made outside the LCIV. A decision on which to adopt for its LCIV investments is expected to be made at that meeting.
A clear divestment road map will be produced at “some point in the future,” according to a council report.
However, councillor Keith Rayner said timescales were important after the government suspended 30 arms exports to Israel earlier this month. He said the value of certain investments could potentially “start dropping”.
He was told the LCIV would be coming back to them “in the next few weeks” on whether it has altered their policies.
Waltham Forest was the first authority in the country to divest from fossil fuel companies, but Cllr Gray previously said that process “took years”.
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