Since the last post (below) we have been informed of a position paper from the West Midlands Pension Fund Committee which is reproduced here. It refers to concerns by the Palestine Solidarity Committee which are shared by West Midlands and National CND.

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The West Midlands Pension Fund Committee last met on Wednesday 18 June 2025.  It is possible to download the agenda and papers relating to that meeting.  Minutes and webcasts of previous meetings are also available.  I have received the following statement from the Committee:
“We recognise there are concerns regarding armaments manufacturers, including those producing nuclear weapons. In June 2024, we issued a statement on our approach to companies operating in the aerospace and defence sector. We continue to monitor the situation closely with our advisers and Governing Bodies and will update our position as needed.” 

The Committee is made up of councillors from each local authority in the West Midlands Metropolitan area. Their next meeting will be on 24 September – please write to your delegate and ask them to consider disinvestment from nuclear weapons manufacture.  I wrote to Councillor Mary Locke, the Birmingham delegate today (19 September) – feel free to use my letter (see below) as a template.

Dear Councillor Locke

I am again writing to you concerning the West Midland’s Pension Fund investments in armaments and in particular in firms involved in the manufacture of nuclear weapons – these firms include Lockheed Martin, BAE systems and General Dynamics. I understand the next meeting of the Pension fund committee is this Wednesday 24th September.
 
Item 5 on the agenda refers to consideration of the Fund’s Responsible Investment Framework 2025. This includes references to Climate Change, Human Rights and Nature and Biodiversity. Clearly the Fund is concerned that its investments are used in a socially responsible manner, but weapons and particularly nuclear weapons are not mentioned, even though weapons manufacture contributes massively to climate change and the destruction of human lives and nature.  It is not appropriate for the pension fund to invest in nuclear weapons manufacture when these weapons could be used to bring death and destruction to millions of people in municipalities in other countries.  Indeed, in the case of conventional armaments, some of the firms the Pension Fund is investing in are manufacturing items (e.g for F-35 fighter jets) which are currently being used by Israel to kill many thousands of innocent people in Gaza.  
I note that Sandwell and Dudley councils have recently passed resolutions urging the pension fund to disinvest from companies involved in armaments manufacture. The Dudley resolution passed on 03/03/25 called on the Pension Fund to “Develop a clear and targeted plan to divest from fossil fuels and arms sales within 12 months vis-a-vis proactive escalation, time-limited targeting, and exclusion”. The Sandwell motion, passed on 25/02/25, called on the West Midlands Pension Fund to “Develop a clear plan to divest from companies involved either directly or indirectly in arms production and the supply of weapons to regimes, terrorist or extremist organisations engaged in breaches of international law and human rights abuses.”  
 
I also note that these resolutions were not discussed at the last meeting of the West Midlands Pension Fund committee in June. I find this extraordinary and urge you to make sure that the resolutions are discussed at the meeting on the 24th of September and that there is serious consideration given by the committee to disinvestment from armaments firms.
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Please can you report back to me about the Committee’s discussion of this issue, also whether there is any progress with a divestment motion to Birmingham City Council.
 
I look forward to hearing from you – Pam Bishop, for West Midlands CND