An Independent councillor has urged Conservative-led Buckinghamshire Council to stop investing in coal through its pension fund.
Ed Gemmell said the council’s fund had £56,000 invested in coal as of December 2023 and that divesting from the fossil fuel would have a ‘negligible effect’ on its returns.
The council’s fund – along with those of other authorities – has been pooled under the Brunel Pension Partnership since 2017 to try and reduce the costs managing its investments and to help provide ‘new opportunities’.
Although Brunel has invested in fossil fuels, the company says it is decarbonising its portfolios and is trying to ‘support the transition to the low carbon economy’.
Cllr Gemmell, who also leads the UK’s Climate Party, brought a motion to divest from coal – the most polluting fossil fuel – to the council’s pension fund committee on Thursday.
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It asked that the committee resolved to: “Instruct Brunel Pension Partnership that no part of the Buckinghamshire Pension Fund will be invested in coal within 12 months of the date of this motion.”
However, the motion was voted down by the majority-Conservative committee, with Cllr Gemmell accused of ‘grandstanding’.
In a statement, he said: “The Conservatives in Buckinghamshire do not care about the future of our children and grandchildren.
“They ignore the very clear warnings from scientists. Additionally, they vote as a block whatever they individually believe and that is very sad to see.
“Residents should demand that their councillors stand up for what is right rather than follow a party line slavishly – we all want democracy in action not inaction fuelled by misguided party loyalty.”
During the meeting, committee chairman, Conservative councillor Tim Butcher, attacked Cllr Gemmell’s motion as ‘grandstanding’.
He and other Tory councillors argued that the committee should not involve itself in Brunel Pension Partnership’s investment decisions but merely set a broad strategy.
Conservative committee member Matthew Walsh told the Bucks Free Press that the council’s pension fund existed to support its members in their retirement and that to meddle in Brunel’s decisions about how to invest it would set a ‘dangerous precedent’.
Cllr Gemmell said: “A simple request to Brunel to find a way to reduce or remove coal from our investment portfolio would, I am sure, be supported by the majority of residents and members of the pension scheme.”
His rejected motion stated that divesting from coal via the pension fund would have been in line with the council’s stated objective of achieving net zero carbon emissions for the county by 2050.
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