Wednesday November 15 | 2017
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INSIDE HELPING HAND
Childrensalon launches petition against fining beggars Page 4
ECONOMY DRIVE
New developments help boost local business Page 8
SOLEMN OCCASION: Some 2,000 people – ‘including a large turnout of young people’ – went along to the War Memorial on Mount Pleasant to mark Remembrance Sunday. The ceremony took place in front of the Town Hall where the walls had been decorated with 10,000 knitted poppies. For more see pages 10,11,12 and 13
Council invests in tobacco while running stop-smoking campaign By William Mata will@timesoftunbridgewells.co.uk
COUNTY HALL has been criticised for running a stop-smoking campaign while investing millions of pounds in tobacco companies, the Times can disclose. Through the independently operated Kent Pension Fund (TKPF) Kent County Council (KCC) has invested a total of £5.8billion in various industries and businesses to benefit employees including teachers and firefighters.
Of that sum, two per cent has been put into tobacco companies, which equates to £116million. During 2015-16 the council spent £1.2million on its stop-smoking services. Around 110,000 staff and employees are enrolled in the TKPF scheme, the vast majority working for KCC. The authority’s only Green Party member, Councillor Martin Whybrow, told the Times: “We are telling our residents not to smoke and then investing in tobacco firms.”
He said KCC was one of the ‘main entities’ in the collective fund and that some people were ‘horrified’ that such investments were making up their pension. “This is something I have been campaigning against since I was elected,” he added. “They [KCC leaders] are hiding behind fiduciary responsibility [a legal obligation for one party to act in another’s best interests]. “This means they have to
make as much money as they can for the owner of the fund but that is no excuse.” Cllr Whybrow said the council was also ‘investing in fossil fuels contrary to the environment strategy’. Fossil fuels account for three per cent of the council’s investment portfolio, which equates to £174million. He said the desire to make as much money as possible for pension funds was ‘a poor reason for supporting fossil fuel and tobacco companies’. The figures were contained in data
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT The Plant Base serves up a healthy feast Page 54
THE MUSIC MAKERS The Carole King and James Taylor Story is on Page 74