I was interviewed by The Times yesterday for its story about the Church Commissioners holding a significant investment in Alphabet, the parent company of Google, despite its tax position. I have to admit I do not know if the quotes made it to the story - I have not got a Times sub right now. This comes from the publicly visible part of the story:
The Church of England is investing millions of pounds in Google despite its promise to confront companies that are accused of tax avoidance.
The church also paid one of its executive commissioners £463,000 last year, almost six times the Archbishop of Canterbury's stipend and about 20 times the minimum pay for a parish priest.
Both aspects are interesting, and as I em engaging with a number of investors these days I share my opinion here.
My view is that it is very difficult for charitable trustees to completely ignore the market presence of some companies unless they find them especially egregious. More than that though I am not sure they should. Those with substantial funds to invest (and the Church Commissioners meet that criteria) can have as much impact by being active thorns in the side of the companies in which they have stakes as they can by divesting. Divestment may be a wholly appropriate act for the individual or small fund but for the larger investor this is just issuing an invitation to be ignored when by holding a stake they can instead demand that reform take place.
I do not criticise the Church Commissioners for having a stake in that case but do believe that they have a duty to make clear that they expect the company to respond to shareholder demands, and that there are at least three of those. The first is that tax is paid in the right place, at the right rate and at the right time. That meets the company's ethical and legal obligations. It also reduces shareholder risk, considerably.
The second is that that Alphabet (and other companies) make clear their commitment to this policy and not by some token gesture, boiler plate statement of the type the UK government is currently proposing but instead by the creation of policy on which they intend to proactively report in future.
Which means that the third demand should be that the company evidence its right behaviour by publishing full country-by-country reporting. Nothing less will do.
The current Church Commissioners statement on tax, ethics and investing falls way short of this standard, It is not good enough as a result. They need to get their act together, and soon.
Executive pay may be another case where they might need to review policy. Christian vocations come in many forms. Few have £400,000+ salaries attached to them. I do not propose that Church Commissioner employees act charitably, but I simply do not believe that salaries of that level are required.
There appears to be a compelling case for some different thinking in the CoE.
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No quotes from you in the times app version. Not sure I follow your logic, by extension the church could invest in a firearms company in order to be a thorn in their side?
I think I included the word egregious?
I find this article troubling, as I often do with all things religious in nature, probably because it reminds me that so some religious institutions are now vastly wealthy modern day corporations (as many always have been) behaving in just as hypocritical a way as their private financial fellows in the City.
I personally think they should all be ashamed of themselves and put their sack cloths back on before spending some very reflective time at the monastery considering their true roles in life – protecting the poor and weak, upholding social and moral values and setting ethical standards in their action and behaviour.
Otherwise, I would perhaps even go as far as to welcome a return to Henry VIII’s approach to such bloated and misguided institutional values – but this time for the benefit of the public demos rather than a monarchical state!
The more I think about it, this article has really ruined my sunny morning’s positive start!
I am now considering both state religion and state monarchy as two sides of the same very debased coinage. I hate these examples of the thinly gilded veneers of increasingly corrupt institutional behaviour at the so-called “top of society”, which have been layered on top of an increasingly worthless and corroding inner core of “real society”.
There is no justification in my view for either of these antiquated and over-valued (in the minds of many like me) institutions. Time to move on, I won’t let this thinking ruin my morning anymore!
Looks like they’ve had a nasty infection of management consultants.
Hmmmm #1
Unlike the local clergy – whom everywhere I find to be plugged into and committed to their communities quite well, what has been happening in the upper echelons of the CoE is extremely worrying. I’m not sure I’m in favour of ex-business folk being in the senior clergy.
The CoE seem to be being co-opted into the Top 1%.
And why not?
All those rich people who have turned honest people into beggars, laundering money, evading taxes and speculating. Poor dears – it must really weigh on their conscience and no doubt being friends with the Church will somehow validate their own venality and help them to sleep at night. After all Jesus died for our sins didn’t he – they will be content with that as the contemplate their next yacht?
I’m not religious but I do believe in the idea of Jesus – the man – and what he stood for. He is someone I can measure myself against and say ‘Mark – you must do better’.
And this is for me where Christianity comes unstuck in such matters. It is too easy with forgiveness. God and Jesus should have know better that to sacrifice him for a creature such as a Wall Street banker, or a businessman who runs his company into the ground after extracting enough profit out of it for himself and leaving the pension pot nearly dry.
If Jesus did kick over the counting tables in the temple – what was he telling us? What did we not understand?
‘The first shall be last and the last shall be first’? Really? Where? On Earth or in Heaven? I’d rather it be Earth as I’m not too sure about the existence of the latter (though personally I feel that Earth could be heavenly if we just worked harder at living and sharing our lives together. Oh, and by looking after Earth a lot better too).
Why too many religions seem to talk about ‘deferred benefits’ (you only get to live well after you have died apparently) is beyond me. It just creates an excuse for bad behaviour in the here and now because we have already been forgiven.
Hmmm #2
From what I’ve read about Jesus – he would be disgusted with this government and much of the rest. And he would no doubt question the stance of the CoE in such matters.
And yet if such a man (or woman) appeared amongst us now with a different message, what would our response be?
Could you imagine cynical Channel 4 News interviewing them? Or how about the impartial and balanced Laura Kuenssberg doing an interview? And how would the Sun report a new sermon of the mount?
He/she would not stand a chance. Goodness knows where a new ‘enlightenment’ will come from. It is much needed. I suppose believing that this will happen one day marks me as almost religious in some way.
BTW – my apologies to any devout people out there – don’t forgive me – pity will do.
I think it was the Quaker William Penn who said something to the effect that given the state of the Church he thought atheism quite a rational response.
‘Why too many religions seem to talk about ‘deferred benefits’ (you only get to live well after you have died apparently) is beyond me. ‘
I think the CofE played into the rise of capitalism and the ‘deferred benefit’ was a way of dealing with the manifest injustice of poverty as it deepened into the 19th Century with increased industrialisation. WE have people like Edmund Burke sayin that the poor should accept the lack of “those necessities which it had pleased the Divine Providence for a while to withhold from them’.
As a result, I’ve always felt the CofE to be rather schizophrenic in relation to social justice.
PSR, as a committed, practising Christian, what you say does not offend me in the least: indeed, I largely agree with you.
Have you, I wonder, seen the marvellous play, “The Wandering Jew”, or the novel of the same name, by Eugene Sue, on which it is based? (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Jew_(novel))
Sue poses exactly that question, addressed by the wandering Jew (who cannot die, until he finds forgiveness because he spat on Jesus on his way to crucifixion) to the Inquisition who are trying him, to whom he says that, if Jesus came down from the cross to the present day, he would not recognise the organisation they had created.
You ask “Could you imagine cynical Channel 4 News interviewing them? Or how about the impartial and balanced Laura Kuenssberg doing an interview? And how would the Sun report a new sermon of the mount?”
Alas, I can imagine it all too easily: quite simply, Jesus would be re-crucified, metaphorically, perhaps even literally, in the form of assassination, and would once again, as in the words of Isaiah 53, (“the suffering servant” theme)be treated thus:
They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
PS: I think I have wrongly attributed the play as having been derived from Eugene Sue’s novel. All I can say is that I saw the play in the White Rose Theatre in Harrogate when I was about 12, or nearly 60 years ago.
I cannot remember the author’s name, but I DO remember the play, and the tremendous impression it made on me, which ended with the scene I have described between the wandering Jew and his inquisitors (and Inquisitors) of the Inquisition.
And, of course, the same theme about a latter day Messiah is quite terrifyingly presented in Dostoyevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” parable in “Brothers Karamazov”.
In (very) round terms
Alphabet’s capitalisation is more than $500billion (£350billion)
Church Commissioners total fund is around £7billion
Investments £6billion of which £4billion in securities, with £1.7billion in listed overseas equities – a total which is less than 0.5% of Alphabet.
The Church Commissioners have a ‘closed fund’ (is that the right term?) with no significant additions to capital.
They now provide about 15% of overall spending across the Church. (2015 report)
Their income is no longer sufficient to pay stipends and clergy pensions contributions: since 1998 the cost of pensions contributions has been increasingly met from the dioceses – ie local giving.
Back in the 80s (when I knew a bit about diocesan finances)the Commissioners were able to fund about half the stipend cost, and all the pensions contributions. They were also able to make generous grants for bringing clergy housing up to modern standards.
Abbreviated points because I don’t want to be tedious.
It says two things
The failure of capital markets
And the cost of pensions
Ooh Richard, you didn’t read your Picketty. And to think you reviewed the reviews.
This may surprise you, but I can form my own opinions
And you can’t spell Piketty
Consider the Borgia’s and indeed any powerful deity of those times, not a great deal has changed in my opinion. Was it Marx who said religion was the opium of the masses. I do not wish to offend either, but find religion and monarchy to be unneccessary.
It does give comfort and I have prayed to I do not know what when faced with adversity in family matters or creatures cruelly treated, no doubt we all do this. Because we are dstressed and low, it is a cry for help. Living in palaces, perhaps 4 bed roomed dwelling would suffice, visitors could use a security checked B and B. What is truly magnificent is of course the wonderful architecture of religious buildings which do have a sense of peace and wonder in any country. Florence, the Alhambra, utterly beautiful. Sorry again for any offence to those of a different persuasion.
I echo your thoughts Sylvia, much as I admire and appreciate many of the good things that both religion and monarchy have undertaken for society in the past (or rather many religious people and some members of the monarchy), it is what happens when the power of the state government is intertwined with these undemocratic and unaccountable institutions of state religion and state monarchy that is truly worrying to me.
Both the state monarchy and the state religion can, and often is, used by the state government itself for its own purposes, and when the state government is not fully democratic (as we lack in the UK) it is quite obvious that there is inevitable collusion between these three powerful autocratic institutions to achieve their ultimate ambitions. It is all part of the establishment power and control mechanism as far as I am concerned.
That is not to say I have anything specifically against individual religious people or members of the royal family. But their supposed legal and moral authority which is enshrined by this particular UK version of a “state troika” is another thing entirely in my view.
Expecting rational behaviour from an organisation which is predicated on superstition is possibly expecting a bit much.
Mind you, maybe it`s romantic of me to conflate morality with rationalism but I`ve always favoured Kropotkin over Spencer.
I think I can honestly say, as a thinking Christian, that I encounter a far greater degree of superstition (in the sense of unexamined acceptance of doctrine, without a tough-minded exploration of meaning) in neo-liberalism than I ever encounter in the reasoning of those who practise the rational faith that I, and many other people of faith, seek to practise. It’s not just people of faith, alas, who gobib for sloppy thinking.
I agree
An important point Andrew and one that Dawkins and Dennet et al need to acknowledge-if they think superstition and erroneous belief systems are the province of only religion then they are wrong.
Due to the above mentioned purveyors of ‘truth’ science becomes ‘scientism’. The arrogance that once you get rid of religion we become ‘rational agents’ is risible and founded on a misunderstanding of the human psyche so profound that I’m amazed Dawkins can call himself a scientist.
Richard has pointed out many times that economics operates very much like a religious belief and is hing on to to protect vested interests and create false psychological security.
Religion at its best is about throwing light on our dark areas-all to often it is used to expand the darkness.
Re: what I said above I’d recommend reading Raymond Tallis’ : ‘Aping Mankind, Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity.’
“go in for” not “gobib”!! Blasted auto text x “fat finger” on small smart phone!
Above all, human kindness to all living things is what matters, but to realise some may value their faith deeply, it speaks to them on many levels. When I go walking and see the beauty of nature that speaks to me. When the children were small always in the park, one in the pram, two hanging on, throw them out, wear them out, back home. They all walk miles as adults.
So can we perhaps rely on the CoE to jettison the religion of NeoClassical Economics?
Perhaps it could give their own religion more space?
Or perhaps all religion is suspect?
I’m afraid the latter is my view.
Certainly the present government seems to have views at variance with the evidence, which to me defines religion. Of course we may not have the complete evidence (which is I presume is what religion would say) but in the absence of evidence, as the scientific approach has achieved to so much provable progress for humanity, it is surely the principal (and only currently feasable) way forward at present.
Richard
“Both aspects are interesting, and as I em engaging with a number of investors these days I share my opinion here.”
Are you qualified to give investment advice? More importantly, are you licensed to do so?
I am not offering investment advice
I am discussing how they secure data they need which is something entirely different
So assuming Alphabet don’t heed your 3 demands (which is likely given how small a stake the CC is likely to have in Alphabet) and carry on as before, would you advise that the Church Commissioners disinvest?
Yes
Very publicly
So then you are offering investment advice?
Accounting is not investment advice. If you knew about investment advice you would know that is not the case
Hmm. I am a professional investment adviser FCA CF21/CF30. I’m guessing you are not.
You are publicly stating the CC should disinvest from Alphabet if Alphabet don’t meet your personal criteria for tax reporting. Not legal or accounting criteria – your criteria.
This does very much constitute investment advice.
I might say that here
I very definitely do not say that to any investor
I only advise them on what the data might achieve for them