Gaza pension motion agreed

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

A multi-million pound pension fund for public servants across Gwent will be asked to review investments linked to Israel’s war in Gaza.

A United Nations commission of inquiry has said Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out since the start of the war with Hamas in 2023.

Members of Monmouthshire County Council agreed at its September meeting, on Thursday, it should review its own investments and take steps to end them if there are any direct or indirect holdings in companies supplying arms, military technology, or logistical support “which enable breaches of international law in Gaza”.

It will also ask the Greater Gwent Pension Fund, which it a member of and is responsible for investing millions of pounds on behalf of current and retired public sector workers across the area, do the same.

The fund has said it has exposure to seven companies domiciled in Israel as of June 2025, totalling £3.8m or 0.08 per cent of total fund assets while campaigners estimate its holds £233 million in companies active in, or trading with, illegal Israeli settlements, or supplying the infrastructure for the military occupation of Palestinian land.

Green Party councillor Ian Chandler, who is a member of the council’s Labour-led cabinet, put forward the motion and reminded councillors they had, in 2022, backed an ethical investment policy at their suggestion.

The Llantilio Crossenny councillor said their motion wasn’t about the council taking a foreign policy stand: “This is not about foreign policy but the responsibility we hold for how public money is used”.

Cllr Chandler also told councillors how with international development charities they had worked in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, in 2015 and 2016, and been a supporter of Palestinian rights since working in Jordan in 1984.

They said since the start of the current military action, in response to the Hamas terror attacks on Israel in October 2023, around one in every 30 people in Gaza had been killed by Israeli military action in what Cllr Chandler, who also “utterly condemned the Hamas attacks and taking of hostages, described as “a totally disproportionate, racist collective punishment.”

Conservative member for Gobion Fawr, Alistair Neill, said the opposition group “completely understands the strength of feeling” and recognises the “range of views held by residents on some of the world’s most challenging issues” but said the council should focus on local issues, citing schools to potholes.

Cllr Neill said: “That’s what Monmouthshire residents expect us to be focused on, not United Nations findings. When the UN starts discussing Monmouthshire I will support discussing that.”

Independent group leader Frances Taylor said she’d previously written to the Greater Gwent fund for clarity on what she said it calls a “responsible” rather than “ethical” investment policy following concerns raised by Amnesty International.

The Magor West and Undy councillor said she hadn’t had a response and councillors should have a “clear view” of the companies the fund is invested in.

Bulwark and Thornwell member Armand Watts also complained at a lack of transparency around the fund and its investments and said in 2022 it was reported the Gwend fund had taken a “£137m hit” due to investments linked to Russia, which it continued to make up until the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

The Labour member said staff had been “disenfranchised” and without a say in the fund’s decision making process but while he was “completely opposed to war” he considered it wrong to divest from firms involved in Britain’s own national security.

The council’s Labour leader, Mary Ann Brocklesby, said she supported the motion and the Gwent fund will be amalgamated with all others in Wales at the end of the year which would be the opportunity for it to review its investments.

Before the debate councillors were also asked by public speaker Peter Short, of Amnesty International Monmouthshire and the Abergavenny Palestine Solidarity Campaign, to divest from companies “complicit” in the war on Gaza and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, as well as to ask the Gwent fund to do the same.

Mr Short named arms firms BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Rolls Royce as companies the Gwent fund is invested in and said banks Barclays and HSBC as well as household names including Airbnb and McDonald’s receive pension fund investment and are active in the occupied territories.

The motion was approved and it also requires a progress report is brought back to the council within three months.