I would like to say one sentence about this. First, could the Minister comment on this situation? I do not have a big role in pensions but in so far as I have, I have been pushing people towards index trackers. An index tracker that conforms to the UN principles for responsible investment is generally accepted. However, at the moment the UN principles do not contain climate change, so to what extent are we putting forward something which would be difficult to implement? Secondly, I wonder whether we are suggesting something which, far from being implemented by the trustees, will be implemented by means of companies, such as one or two I have come across in my life, which will go to trustees and say, “Here you are; for just £500 we can give you a statement of principles which will get you past the regulator”. There is a sense in which we might not be curing a problem at all but creating it, certainly for small pension funds that are largely invested in index trackers and bonds. Even bonds have their problems.
In a pension fund where I was once a trustee when I said, “We will probably buy some UK Government bonds”, a member said, “Oh yes, Mr Blair needs the money to bomb Iraq, doesn’t he?”
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