Lincolnshire Attacked Over Investments
Lincolnshire County Council’s pension fund investments policy has been attacked over millions ploughed into Big Tobacco
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by Dave Cross
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Lincolnshire County Council’s pension committee meets on Thursday, and show a massive investment in Big Tobacco in figures published prior to the event. The total pension pot runs to £2.3 billion, so £45 million constitutes a small part but still appears to be odd considering the increasingly restricted efforts to reduce smoking. The county now outsources its anti-smoking efforts to Quit 51, a service that also operates in Solihull, Stoke-on-Trent and Surrey.
Lincolnshire invest as follows:
- British American Tobacco - £24,100,000
- Phillip Morris – £11,147,705
- Imperial Brands – £4,557,627
- Altria Group – £5,543,507
- Japan Tobacco – £411,943
The council states: “(We have) a legal duty to achieve the best rate of return for the 75,000 pension fund members and ensure its long-term future. For this reason, it maintains a wide and varied portfolio, all of which is managed externally. The fund managers seek strong, sustainable companies with good all-round credentials.”
Currently, there are 106,000 smokers in Lincolnshire. Of those, just 5,207 accessed the Quit 51 service during the course of 2017/18.
The council justifies its current approach because, “there will be many more people who have quit or cut down using support from pharmacies, GPs and other services.”
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous vape companies to develop content for their websites.
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