....We want to be clear that, as trustee, we can only make investment decisions on financial best interest grounds. Our in-house investment team at USS Investment Management (USSIM) make value-based decisions every day, across financial markets, in seeking to achieve the investment returns the scheme needs to pay members’ benefits. The decisions that have been reported on this week were made on that basis, and that basis alone.

Some commentators have stated, or implied, that we have excluded Israel from our investment portfolio. We have not. It is also wrong to state, or imply, that our decisions were made for anything other than financial reasons. They were not made in response to the range of views USS members may have, and nor were they any form of comment on events other than the financial circumstances....