Member

While I am on the subject of powerful advocacy, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) for tabling new clause 17, which seeks to clarify the scope of trustees’ investment duties, which are sometimes referred to as fiduciary duties. This is a long-running debate, and almost everyone involved in it agrees on one fundamental principle: a trustee’s primary duty is to act in the interests of scheme members. Nothing should change or undermine that. His new clause highlights that different trustees continue to take different approaches to interpreting those duties, and in particular in how they take into account structural factors such as climate risk and members’ standards of living when they are making investment decisions. That matter is raised again in a number of the amendments tabled, and we discussed it at some length in Committee.