I t’s a tricky one, I’d say. £68million of Lancashire local authorities’ pension funds invested in tobacco companies; £78million in drinks, and liquor companies, like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Pernod Ricard, and Heineken.

Meanwhile, councils have taken over responsibility for public health spending, and are campaigning for fewer people to smoke, lower consumption of fizzy drinks, and only a moderate consumption of alcohol.

Should the councils’ representatives on the trustees of the pension fund vote to pull out of those companies whose products can exacerbate ill-health?

Personally, I’d require a lot of convincing.

You could say that tobacco is a special case, since its principal product – cigarettes – is unquestionably linked to cancer, heart disease, and many other fatal or life-threatening conditions.

But soft drink and liquor companies?

In sensible amounts neither carbonated soft drinks, nor beer, spirits, or wine lead to ill-health. It’s excessive consumption that does. By my book the onus must lie with those who raise the glass or bottle to their mouth, not the companies who supply them.

If these drinks companies were local – Thwaites for example – would those proposing disinvestment be saying the same things? Taking this approach is an zany as claiming that over-weight people are more likely to use their cars, so we should disinvest from vehicle manufacturers too.

How about the great defence-related companies in Lancashire – BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, and plenty of their local suppliers? Do we disinvest from them because some folk don’t like their product, despite the thousands of jobs in our county they sustain? I don’t think so. There is however another issue about these huge pension funds – the Lancashire one alone has £5billion of assets.

A report for the Department of Communities and Local Government found that if, instead of paying expensive advisers to manage their portfolios, they went in for a “passive arrangement” they would eventually save £420m in investment fees and transaction costs. They’d simply track the market – and over the medium terms would produce no worse a return.

Now that does sound like sense.