I HAVE followed with interest the recent correspondence regarding council disinvestment from fossil fuel companies.

This is, of course, only one of many sectors that ethical investors seek to avoid; tobacco products, alcohol, armaments, gambling and, more recently, payday lenders are all plausible candidates for disinvestment.

Strangely, however, none of the recent correspondence nor, so far as I am aware, the council resolutions make any mention of disinvestment from other sectors. Do the Greens not care about any of these other issues? Have they reverted to the archetypal single-issue party?

Over the long term, ethical investments appear to perform perfectly satisfactorily, and there is a strong moral argument for requiring public authorities to invest ethically. I suspect, however, that national legislation would be needed to bring this about. Councils are constrained by law in what they are allowed to do, and council resolutions are a wholly ineffective means of addressing such issues.

Cllr CHRIS ROBINS
Foxdown Close
Kidlington

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