Authority committed to tackling smoking - but its shares anger
many

Source: This is North Scotland (Press & Journal / Evening Express) (uk)
Date: 2010-02-27

Highland Council’s continued multimillion-pound investment in the tobacco industry threatens to overshadow publication of a report next week which claims that the authority takes health issues seriously.

The document by its health improvement policy officer Keith Walker commits the council to “reducing the burden of disease, disability and premature death due to tobacco by reducing the inequalities in current smoking rates, reducing exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke and reducing the uptake of smoking.”

Tackling smoking features in “health priorities” that councillors are expected to ratify at Thursday’s full council meeting in Inverness.

The report refers to “a recognition” that the issues can only be effectively addressed through “dealing with the underlying causes of health inequalities alongside preventative interventions”.

It boasts that all primary and secondary schools in the region have included tobacco education as part of the curriculum.

The council confirmed yesterday, however, that it continues to have millions of pounds of its pension and common good funds invested in tobacco companies, more than two years after the Press and Journal revealed the authority’s December 2007 holding of more than £30million in the industry.

Council leader GP Michael Foxley and several colleagues are vehemently opposed to the choice of stocks and there has been widespread condemnation from north politicians.

Most councillors have defended it, however, on the advice of an advocate who told them that “excluding” an investment on ethical grounds could be financially costly because the council is duty bound to maintain maximum profitability for its portfolio.

Defending councils’ “autonomy,” Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon last year refused to criticise the choice of investment, but suggested its elected members would in future “answer to the electorate”.