KCC Pension Fund Holds £38m in Oil, Gas, Coal and Arms Firms, Including Companies Linked to Gaza

Kent’s pension fund has spent years edging away from some of the world’s dirtiest and deadliest industries. Yet the latest company-level records show the job isn’t finished. At 31 March 2026, the £9.43 billion fund still had £31.96 million tied to oil, coal and gas, plus £6.25 million linked to military manufacturing or defence work — £38.21 million altogether. It’s a small slice of the pot, about 0.41%, but in hard cash it’s hardly loose change down the back of the sofa.

The date matters. The detailed asset file was produced on 27 May 2026, but every holding in it was valued at 31 March 2026. It isn’t a 27 May valuation, and there’s no 31 May snapshot in the spreadsheets. We’ve also used market value — what each investment was worth at the cut-off — rather than pretending that figure was necessarily what KCC originally paid.

The biggest fossil-fuel block is direct production. KCC held £2.92 million in Pertamina, £2.82 million in Saudi Aramco, £1.98 million in QatarEnergy, £1.95 million in Reliance Industries, £1.14 million in KazMunayGas and £779,487 in PETRONAS. These aren’t firms merely selling a few cans of petrol at the roadside; their groups explore for, extract and produce oil or gas.

Another £19.50 million sat in the plumbing that keeps the fossil-fuel economy flowing: gas distributors, pipelines, liquefied-natural-gas terminals and refining. Northern Gas Networks accounted for £2.79 million, Galaxy Pipeline Assets £2.62 million, Cadent £2.57 million, NGPL PipeCo £1.95 million and EIG Pearl — linked to Saudi crude-oil pipelines — £1.85 million. There were further holdings in SGN, Neste, Enbridge, National Gas Transmission, Cheniere, Abu Dhabi’s crude-oil pipeline, APA’s pipelines and Sabine Pass LNG.

Coal hasn’t vanished either. KCC held £152,152 in Glencore, a group which still extracts coal, and £719,174 in Minejesa Capital, the financing vehicle connected to Indonesia’s coal-fired Paiton power business. One digs it up; the other helps burn it.

That distinction doesn’t make the environmental bill disappear. UNEP says extraction carries serious consequences for climate, pollution, biodiversity, human health and human rights. The World Health Organization says fossil-fuel combustion drives both greenhouse-gas emissions and air pollution, with indoor and outdoor pollution together associated with roughly seven million premature deaths a year. The companies aren’t all equally responsible for that toll, and holding a bond doesn’t prove an environmental offence, but these sectors plainly aren’t harmless bystanders.

Then there’s the armoury. The visible defence-linked total was £6.25 million: £2.31 million in General Motors Financial, whose parent owns GM Defense; £1.42 million in Booz Allen Hamilton; £983,007 in Howmet Aerospace; £930,942 in Qorvo; and £604,197 in ZF. The labels matter. Howmet, Qorvo and ZF manufacture military components or systems. GM Financial is an indirect group connection. Booz Allen sells defence technology and services, but it isn’t a conventional bomb, gun or missile maker.

Thre current holdings have a documented connection to the F-35 aircraft used by Israel in Gaza. Howmet says it supplies critical F-35 bulkheads, engine blades, rings and fasteners. Qorvo says F-35 radar platforms benefit from its technology. Israel’s own military stated in November 2023 that its “Adir” F-35 jets were striking targets and assisting ground forces in close-proximity strikes during its Gaza operations. And Booz Allen has worked on and supported the F-35 weapons system, a combat aircraft that Israel has used to carry out strikes in Gaza. That establishes a supply-chain connection to a weapons platform used in Gaza; it doesn’t prove KCC’s investment paid for a particular component, aircraft or attack.

We found no similarly firm public evidence tying ZF’s military-vehicle systems or GM Defense vehicles to attacks in Gaza, so we won’t shoehorn them into the claim. They remain defence-linked holdings, but “defence contractor” and “supplier to a particular military operation” aren’t the same thing.

There’s also a ghost from last year. The Shepway Vox Team reported that KCC held £5.36 million in BAE Systems at 31 March 2025. BAE says it supplies roughly 15% of every F-35, including rear fuselages and electronic-warfare systems, while Israel has used F-35s during its Gaza campaign. BAE therefore had the same platform-level connection. However, there’s no separately named BAE holding in the 31 March 2026 list, so it would be wrong to count that £5.36 million as current.

This story has been running for years. In 2018, The Shepway Vox Team found more than £200 million in fossil fuels and £17 million in BAE. By March 2020, the reported fossil figure was £210 million. In 2021, BP, Shell, BAE and Lockheed Martin had disappeared from the named list, while Petrobras, Pemex, Lukoil and Glencore remained. In 2022, visible fossil exposure was reported at just 0.11%. Then the 2025 analysis found more than £170 million in fossil firms and nearly £28 million in defence holdings. The figures have bobbed about like a cork in the Channel.

Four names from that earlier reporting are still aboard today: QatarEnergy, KazMunayGas, PETRONAS and Glencore, worth £4.05 million between them. But comparisons across years need a health warning. Pooled funds can hide their underlying companies, managers change reporting formats, and a named-security list isn’t necessarily a full look-through. The current £38.21 million is therefore a minimum visible figure, not a cast-iron ceiling.

So, does KCC have a legal duty to chase the biggest return regardless of the wreckage left behind? No — not in those crude terms. The June 2026 statutory guidance says the fund’s primary purpose is securing the long-term returns needed to pay pensions, while acting with care, skill, prudence and diligence and considering financially material risks over the short, medium and long term. In other words, it’s risk-adjusted pension stewardship, not a day at the races.

Environmental, social and governance factors aren’t an optional garnish. The guidance says the investment strategy must explain its responsible-investment approach and must consider ESG matters where they’re financially material. It also permits non-financial concerns where there’s no risk of significant financial detriment and there’s good reason to believe scheme members support them. The Law Commission reached much the same position: financial return is predominant, but environmental and ethical factors can lawfully enter the room.

There is, however, no simple legal commandment saying an LGPS fund must never invest in a business that harms the environment. Indeed, the new guidance says administering authorities should set high-level objectives rather than individual holdings and that their responsible-investment approach shouldn’t impose exclusions on particular companies or countries. The asset pool now does the stock-picking. That doesn’t wash KCC’s hands clean: it remains responsible for its strategy, risk appetite, responsible-investment priorities and oversight of the pool.

That is the rub. All Kent’s past and present local-government workers’ wages, council and public-body employer contributions, police and fire civilian staff, non-teaching school staff, academy employees, parish-council staff, voluntary organisations and employees of outsourced service contractors, who invest into KCC’s pensions all need their pensions paid, but they don’t need the debate reduced to a false choice between decent returns and a liveable planet — or between financial security and human life. The law allows climate risk, environmental damage and members’ values to be considered. What the spreadsheet show is that, after nearly a decade of divestment claims and reversals, millions of pounds are still travelling through oilfields, gas pipes, coal plants and military supply chains. The tap hasn’t been turned off; it has merely been tightened.

Have a story that needs telling, or information you think may interest us? Please get in touch. All correspondence will be treated in the strictest confidence. TheShepwayVoxTeam@proton.me

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