A Conservative MP has said British defence firms are being excluded from Parliament’s pension funds whilst Chinese companies are not.
Speaking on GB News, Jack Rankin said: “40% of the funds are invested in equity holdings which exclude any business which has anything to do with nuclear weapons. So the practical effect is that, for example, BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Babcock, three of the biggest British defence firms which are involved in the supply chain of the Trident submarine, would be excluded from capital investment from 40% of the fund.
“And my view is that our obligations at Westminster, we can agree and disagree about what the breadth is, but our first obligation is defence of the realm. And there’s nothing more immoral than sending British servicemen and women to war under equipped and not having the right investment in British defence is what that might mean.
“My view is that no public funds should be excluding defence for any reasons. Our obligations first and foremost to our men and women overseas. Not only do we not invest in British defence firms, as we showed, they’re investing in Chinese holdings.
“Now we can have the argument about whether they should be doing that or not, and that’s quite a complicated argument. But they’re effectively investing in Tencent, which is the parent company of WeChat, which everybody acknowledges is part of the Chinese surveillance state.
“So not only do we have a naivety about not investing in our own defence, we’re actively investing in our geopolitical competitors, and some might even say, foes.
“I think we have to be careful about redirecting funds. The trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to deliver the best return for the beneficiaries. And just think about what excluding defence did.
“So take Babcock, BAE Systems, Rolls Royce. If you had a diversified fund across those three, you’d have doubled your money in the last year. Now that’s a sign of geopolitical tensions abroad. But clearly not being invested in those is costing potential pensioners of the future money, and that should be the underlying concern of pension trust.
“This is about the way progressive authoritarians have captured our institutions, which I’m afraid happened partly on our watch. Whether that’s universities, obviously a big part of that.
“Because the troubles defence firms face are wider than this. So I’ve got a business in my constituency that makes ammunition. They make 90% of their ammunition from Ukraine. I think most people would argue that that was a very moral thing to do. They get de-banked…
“There’s a naivety at the heart of this. I think most people of sensible mind would understand that defence is a necessary evil in the world at any point. And as I say, our first duty in the House of Commons is defence of the realm and looking after the boys and girls that we send overseas on our behalf.
“So we absolutely should stop this. But there’s a broader point here about how we’ve let this creep into institutions almost everywhere. And I think that’s something that we should really crack down.
“It’s a cultural change. The Bank of England sat it on net zero. You know, Net Zero has got nothing to do with the Bank of England’s remit, as far as I can determine.
“So we obviously need to take control of the arms length bodies that the British state has control of. But we also have to make sure that we make that culture change right through our public life.”