Midlothian Council (UK) calls on local pension fund to divest

Cities, News

The Midlothian Council unanimously adopted a resolution last week calling on the local Lothian Pension Fund to divest from companies involved in producing nuclear weapons. This follows on from similar resolutions passed by Renfrewshire Council and West Dunbartonshire Council earlier this year.

The Lothian Pension Fund provides pension services for local government employees in Edinburgh and the Lothians area of Scotland. It is one of the largest in the UK, has over 85 associated employers and over 78,000 members. The Lothian Pension Fund is known to hold shares in companies that are involved in the production or maintenance of nuclear weapons or their delivery systems, including some that undertake work on the UK’s nuclear weapons programme.

The resolution adopted by the Midlothian Council calls on the Lothian Pension Fund to:

  1. Work towards eliminating current and future financial exposure to companies that are involved in the production or maintenance of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, giving due regard to fiduciary duty.
  2. Council asks the Chief Executive to write to the convenor of Lothian Pension Funds pension committee to urge them to take full consideration of this resolution.

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About Maaike Beenes

Maaike Beenes works for the humanitarian disarmament program for PAX in the Netherlands. She researches investments by financial institutions in producers of controversial weapons, notably nuclear weapons and cluster munitions, and is co-author of the reports ‘Don’t Bank on the Bomb’ and ‘Worldwide Investments in Cluster Munitions’. As part of the Don’t Bank on the Bomb campaign of PAX and ICAN, she works together with campaigners around the world to hold banks and other investors accountable for their investments in nuclear and other controversial weapons. She was involved in the negotiations for the Treaty on the Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons on behalf of PAX and ICAN.