Press release
Divest East Sussex [1]
Tuesday 9 April 2024
PHOTO: https://tinyurl.com/cllrfoxoilyfriends [CAPTION: ‘Cllr Fox’ with oily friend outside County Hall at the ‘TIME TO DIVEST’ protest, 6 February 2024. Image: Steve Lewis.]
COUNCILLORS DODGE PUBLIC DEBATE ON FOSSIL FUEL DIVESTMENT
Conservative Councillors on East Sussex Pension Committee ‘unable’ to defend decade-long failed policy on fossil fuel companies, say campaigners
Tuesday 9 April 2024: The three Conservative Councillors on the East Sussex Pension Committee have all declined an invitation to take part in a public debate on divestment versus engagement, to be held at Lewes Climate Hub (32 High Street, BN7 2LU) at 1pm this Saturday (13 April). [2] The debate was a rare opportunity for the three County Councillors (Gerard Fox, Paul Redstone and Ian Hollidge) to defend in open debate the East Sussex Pension Fund’s long-standing refusal to divest from the fossil fuel companies that are driving the climate crisis.
The East Sussex Pension Fund, which covers Brighton & Hove as well as East Sussex, is administered by East Sussex County Council. It currently has tens of millions of pounds of local people’s pension monies invested in oil and gas companies like Shell and BP. [3] Its investments in fossil fuel companies have been the focus of a ten-year campaign by East Sussex and Brighton residents [1].
A long list of organisations and individuals have called on the Fund to stop investing in fossil fuels, including: Bexhill Town Council, Brighton & Hove City Council, Hastings Borough Council, Lewes District and Town Councils, Peacehaven Town Council, Rother District Council, Saleshurst & Robertsbridge Parish Council, Maria Caulfield MP (Cons, Lewes), Caroline Lucas Green MP (Green, Brighton Pavilion) and UNISON. [4] However, Conservative Councillors on the Fund’s five-person decision-making body, the East Sussex Pension Committee, have consistently blocked these calls. [5]
Another vote on fossil fuel divestment is expected to take place this summer. [6].
Councillor Hollidge (Bexhill South) declined to take part, citing prior engagements and claiming that ‘the subject has been discussed in full many times’ [7]. Echoing the infamous ‘We Should Improve Society Somewhat’ meme [8], Councillor Redstone (Northern Rother) also declined, posing his own ‘key question’: ‘Do those supporting [divestment] use fossil fuels?’. [9] Councillors Hollidge and Redstone have previously suggested that the Fund rebrand fossil fuel companies as ‘energy companies’, in an apparent attempt to hide the simple reality that it is fossil fuel companies that are driving the climate crisis. [10]
Saturday’s (13 April) debate will go ahead without the three Councillors, with financial writer Richard Tyszkiewicz stepping in to make the case for engagement. A further event, ‘How to invest for good’, will take place at the Hub at 1pm on Saturday 20 April.
Juliet Oxborrow, a director of Lewes Climate Hub, said: “At a time of extreme climate crisis, this debate is a timely opportunity to ask what’s the most powerful way that we as pension scheme members, shareholders or simply customers can make companies cease the practices that are wrecking our planet … It’s a huge shame that the county councillors stewarding the East Sussex Pension Fund don’t see the value of joining this balanced, thoughtful debate.”
A spokesperson for Divest East Sussex said: “The East Sussex Pension Fund’s decade-long policy of ‘shareholder engagement’ with fossil fuel companies has been an abject failure. Indeed, without exception, oil and gas companies are continuing to approve and invest in new extraction projects, even though it’s now widely understood that it’s impossible to burn all of the oil and gas in current fields and still have a fighting chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change [11]. Given this stark reality we strongly suspect that Councillors Hollidge, Redstone and Fox are not only unwilling, but also unable, to defend this disastrous policy in free and open public debate.”
ENDNOTES
[1] https://divesteastsussex.wordpress.com
[2] https://lewesclimatehub.org/green-your-money
[3] See p. 225 of https://democracy.eastsussex.gov.uk/documents/g5505/Public%20reports%20pack%2019th-Sep-2023%2010.00%20Pension%20Committee.pdf?T=10
[4] Hastings Borough Council: ‘Campaigners’ joy as Hastings council agrees fossil fuel divestment’, 14 April 2016, Hastings Observer, http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/local/campaigners-joy-as-hastings-council-agrees-fossil-fuel-divestment-1-7328414. Lewes Town Council: https://fossilfreehastings.wordpress.com/2017/03/07/lewes-town-council-calls-for-east-sussex-pension-fund-to-ditch-its-investments-in-oil-coal-and-gas. Lewes District Council: https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/politics/lewes-council-leader-back-end-east-sussex-pension-fund-investing-fossil-fuels-2886968. Brighton & Hove City Council: https://fossilfreehastings.wordpress.com/2017/04/06/brighton-council-calls-for-east-sussex-pension-fund-to-ditch-fossil-fuels (BHCC reiterated this call in October 2020 and then again in February 2022). Maria Caulfield: https://divesteastsussex.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/caulfield-letter-snip_opt.jpg. Peacehaven Town Council: https://democracy.eastsussex.gov.uk/documents/b14993/Item%207%20-%20Appendix%206%20-%20Letter%20from%20Peacehaven%20Town%20Council%2021st-Sep-2020%2009.00%20Pension%20Committee.pdf?T=9. Bexhill Town Council: https://www.bexhilltowncouncil.gov.uk/shared/attachments.asp?f=c03eef87%2D6214%2D423b%2D8388%2Dfc2c9a7c0538%2Epdf&o=210818%2DFull%2DCouncil%2DAugust%2DMinutes%2DDRAFT%2Epdf. UNISON: https://www.unison.org.uk/news/press-release/2018/01/unison-launches-campaign-divest-pensions-carbon. Rother District Council: https://divesteastsussex.wordpress.com/2023/02/21/rother-district-council-backs-call-for-fossil-fuel-divestment/. Saleshurst & Robertsbridge Parish Council: https://divesteastsussex.wordpress.com/2023/03/21/press-release-robertsbridge-parish-council-calls-on-county-council-to-stop-investing-in-fossil-fuels/#more-2531
[5] See, for example, https://divesteastsussex.wordpress.com/2022/07/20/press-release-climate-campaigners-condemn-tory-councillors-vote-on-fossil-fuels/
[6] Personal communication with members of the East Sussex Pension Committee. The most likely dates are 19 June or 25 September.
[7] Email to Lewes Climate Hub, 2 April 2024.
[8] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-somewhat
[9] Email to Lewes Climate Hub, 21 March 2024.
[10] https://divesteastsussex.wordpress.com/2022/07/26/press-release-dont-mention-the-fossil-fuels-climate-campaigners-condemn-councillors-attempts-to-obscure-role-of-fossil-fuel-companies/
[11] According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), if we’re to have a fighting chance of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C ‘there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from [2021]’: ‘No new oil, gas or coal development if world is to reach net zero by 2050, says world energy body’, Guardian, 18 May 2021, https://tinyurl.com/nonewoilcoalgas
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