Mr. Nick Ashmore:

ESG refers to environment, social and governance issues. It is what we call social and responsible investing. It is an important theme. The NPRF was one of the founding signatories of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment back in 2006. That body now encompasses thousands and thousands of investors around the world and we were right at the beginning of that process.

Within Hermes's engagement programme is specific engagement around companies that are having issues with human rights. That also involves a number of these companies that are operating in the occupied Palestinian territories. Hermes has been engaging on our and other investors' behalf with these companies around these issues, proactively. With ESG, there is a sort of two-tier approach across the market. The first approach is to engage to see if we can persuade companies to change what they are doing, such as maybe to cease operations, operate in a more transparent way or open up what their activities are in order that other investors can come in and other stakeholders can see what they are doing. Hermes has engaged with a number of companies on our behalf and on behalf of other investors in the occupied Palestinian territories. Some of them are on the list and some are not but are actually active. One of the challenges with the UN list is that it is a point-in-time list. It has not been updated in recent times. It is not that old, but there is not a sense it is going to be updated regularly.

At the moment we are working with the Department on the response to the initiation of the legislative process and to try to see where there is a solution that would work within the legislation to address this.