Council pension fund condemned as ‘hypocritical’ over £16million tobacco shares

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Council pension fund condemned as ‘hypocritical’ over £16million tobacco shares

By Koos Couvée
THE council has been branded “hypocritical” after it was revealed that its pensions fund holds shares worth £16.3million in tobacco firms.

An investigation by The Press has found that the fund, which is worth more than £841m, has invested more money in tobacco shares than Barnet Council, which is in charge of public health in the borough, receives in annual public health funding.

Critics have pointed to the fact that since April 2013 local authorities have taken charge of public health budgets, previously administered by the NHS, with services provided including smoking cessation support, which has a budget of £683,000, drug services and sexual health and health checks. Barnet received £14.3m from the NHS as part of its public health allocation for 2014/15.

A spokesman for the Faculty of Public Health, the charity which sets standards for public health professionals in the UK, said: “It has long been our position that councils should not invest pension funds in tobacco companies. Tobacco is the only legal substance which kills half its customers when it is used as intended.”

Last year it was estimated that 17.5 per cent of adults in the borough are smokers. Smoking remains the country’s biggest killer, with half of long-term smokers dying prematurely from a smoking disease, usually lung cancer.

Barry Rawlings, Labour spokesman on the council for health and adult social care, also urged the authority to sell its tobacco holdings.

The occasional smoker added: “We are urging people to stop smoking, but at the same time the pension fund is making a profit from tobacco. That’s hypocritical really. There are plenty of ethical investments which offer just as good a return.”

Helena Hart, chairwoman of the council’s health and well-being board, said: “While from a public health point of view I will always do everything to help people to stop smoking, matters with regard to investments in tobacco firms are solely the remit of the pension fund committee.”

The council added that the committee had a “fiduciary duty” to develop an investment strategy that maximises return and said that the authority itself did not hold any investments in tobacco stocks.

Of all the London boroughs, only Croydon, Newham and Brent councils have no holdings in tobacco firms for ethical reasons.