A BARRHEAD activist is to lead a protest against a pension fund investing £18.9million in four major arms companies.

Sean Clerkin has organised the protest against the Strathclyde Pension Fund today (Wednesday) at 1pm in George Square, demanding that Glasgow City Council and their Strathclyde Pension Fund, use their multi million pound investment fund in a far more ethical manner.

The protest group have suggested that the fund could go toward helping homeless in the city after it was revealed that homeless funding in the city faces being slashed by £2.6m.

Glasgow's homeless services are set to be hammered later this year, as ten services across eight organisations face having their funding completely cut.

Clerkin believes that the money could be used to help the essential services affected by these cuts.

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However the council has stated that if they were to do this they would be breaking the law.

Clerkin said: "The whole idea of investing in arms companies is morally repugnant. The money should be taken back and invested in public services.

"We believe some of the cash should be used to reverse the £2.6 million in cuts to the homeless services.”

Strathclyde Pension Fund has a pension fund of more than £22 billion and has invested nearly £19m in companies that have allegedly supplied weapons linked to the conflict in Yemen.

Following the demonstration the group will hand a letter to Glasgow City Council Leader Susan Aitken asking they divest the money in a more ethical manner.

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A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said this would be highly illegal.

He said: "This would be completely illegal in about half-a-dozen different ways.

"The pension fund isn’t the council’s money to spend – it is the retirement savings of tens of thousands of current and former staff at dozens of employers across the public, private and third sectors.”

This was originally reported in our sister title The Evening Times.