A CONSERVATIVE MP has introduced an amendment to the Public Service Pensions Bill intended to prevent the public sector from participating in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, despite condemnation by Amnesty UK.
The BDS movement aims to pressure the state of Israel into withdrawing from the occupied territories, removing the West Bank separation barrier, implementing full equality for Palestinians within Israel and allowing the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Tory MP Robert Jenrick’s amendment, debated in the Commons on Tuesday, seeks to make it impossible for public sector pension schemes to make investment decisions that conflict with UK foreign policy.
Addressing the Commons, Jenrick said: “Public service pension schemes paid for by the taxpayer, by one means or another, and underwritten by the state, are quite clearly the preserve of the United Kingdom Government, and as such, it is perfectly legitimate that the United Kingdom Government has a say in regulating how public pension schemes manage the money that is provided to them by we, the taxpayers of the country.
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“For too long, we’ve seen public pension schemes pursue pseudo-foreign policies. All too often, the foreign policy of these public pension schemes is I’m afraid exclusively focused on rewriting the UK’s relationship with the world’s only Jewish state.”
Jenrick, who in December last year stated that the government would be working to “outlaw” BDS in the coming months, added: “Were this amendment to pass, it should merely be the beginning of a wider effort to tackle BDS within the private sector, and that we as a government make good on our manifesto commitment to a full BDS bill.”
The amendment drew condemnation from Amnesty International last week, with the human rights organisation arguing: “The proposed amendment represents an unjustifiable interference with the rights of individual pension savers to exercise their freedom of conscience, the ability of public sector pension schemes to exercise their fiduciary duties, in addition to their investor responsibility to improve corporate practices and to meet their obligations under the UNGPs.
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“It effectively conscripts individual public sector pension scheme members’ own money to promote central government’s foreign and defence policies regardless of their own wishes or the judgment of those appointed to act in their interests.”
Speaking in opposition to the amendment today, Labour MP Zarah Sultana cited the example of 123 UK councils who, by 1989, adopted policies opposing Apartheid, including 39 councils that divested from companies operating in South Africa.
“While the prime minister Margaret Thatcher was calling the ANC and Nelson Mandela ‘terrorists’, and Young Conservatives were proudly wearing badges calling for him to hanged, local authorities were on the right side of history.”
“This amendment, in the name of the member for Newark, would ban local councils from taking such a stand.”
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