Is Tory minister Lady Stedman-Scott a sleeping agent of Extinction Rebellion?
The thought did cross my mind as I read the Pension Bill amendments in her name (see pages 10-15). Now normally amendments to a Pensions Bill are as revolutionary (and as bland) as a mug of Horlicks before bedtime.
And the response of parts of the pensions industry to the proposal?
They seem to think she is a dangerous revolutionist upending the rule of law.
Here’s the head of defined benefit at the Local Government Pension Scheme: the amendment would: “give unprecedented new powers to government bodies to interfere and request changes to private sector schemes’ investment strategies”.
Get real, mate.
What the government is proposing is a regime whereby pension trustees are obliged to say what impact the billions and trillions under their control have on climate change. Is the proposed framework complex and far-reaching? Yes – but so it should be. Climate change is complex and far-reaching.
The legislation reflects pension industry failure. Too slow to recognise that it needs to act on climate change Lady Stedman-Scott, a modern day Green Boadicea, is prescribing a course of action for them.