{"id":33925,"date":"2025-07-30T17:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T17:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/33925\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T17:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T17:19:08","slug":"major-vote-on-gaza-pension-fund-investments-motion-delayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/33925\/","title":{"rendered":"Major vote on Gaza pension fund investments motion delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Pension fund committee (PFC) chair Cllr Chris Jarman tabled a proposal<\/a> for the PFC to \u2018strongly urge\u2019 fund managers \u2018to avoid any direct or indirect investment which may or may be seen to be supporting or enabling the continuing genocide in Gaza\u2019.\n<\/p>\n

\n It also says the PFC should \u2018write to the relevant national pension oversight bodies and the UK Government urging them to support ethical investment standards across all Local Government Pension Scheme funds\u2019.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Empowering Islanders councillor\u2019s plea comes after Marilyn Barrett, an activist from the Isle of Wight branch of the national Palestine Solidarity Campaign, probed the integrity of the council\u2019s pension fund investments at a full council meeting earlier this month.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n PFC yesterday afternoon (July 29) heard from County Hall\u2019s pension fund manager Steve Harrison who relayed advice from the chief financial officer, Chris Ward: \u201cAny motion that carries potential financial risk to the fund itself, members of the committee or officers of the council should be fully informed.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAs yet, we are not in receipt of all the legal advice necessary for that motion to be an informed motion. Should the motion be voted upon, I consider that it would be a failure of governance.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Ward recommended a \u201cfully informed and considered\u201d report to be brought back to the committee.\n<\/p>\n

\n Cllr Joe Lever, the Green Party representative for Carisbrooke and Gunville, said: \u201cI\u2019m incredibly frustrated by this\u2026this has been discussed for nearly a year now. The wording of the motion itself isn\u2019t dictating anything\u2026it\u2019s simply urging fund managers and relevant bodies into action.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAs days go on, it is more clear and more evident about what is happening (in Gaza).\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Later in the meeting he added: \u201cI don\u2019t want us as a committee to risk making a decision now, as much as I would like to, that is then undermined at a later date\u2026without the advice that we\u2019re being told we need to receive.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Liberal Democrat councillor for Brighstone, Calbourne and Shalfleet Nick Stuart said: \u201cCllr Lever has articulated better than I could do the discomfort we feel. My party in parliament has been shouting about this issue for months and in some cases years.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere is no doubt where we stand but we want to have something here that will stand up to any consideration by any other body \u2013 if we\u2019re going to do something, we need to do it properly.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n PFC requested a meeting be scheduled in two weeks\u2019 time for a deferred vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pension fund committee (PFC) chair Cllr Chris Jarman tabled a proposal for the PFC to \u2018strongly urge\u2019 fund…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-33925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}