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PA
UK News

Catholic MP linked to abortion pill firm

It has emerged an investment firm of which Jacob Rees-Mogg is a co-partner holds shares worth nearly £5 million in an Indonesian pharmaceutical company which makes misoprostol.

In an interview with the Sunday Mirror, the Conservative politician said: "I don't manage the funds and haven't done so since I became an MP.

"But the funds have to be run in accordance with the requirements of the investors and not according to my religious beliefs."

The representative for North East Somerset owns a 15 per cent share in the London-based Somerset Capital Management firm.

GMB

Co-founded in 2007, the company manages £5.7 billion - including £4.8 million worth of shares in the Jakarta-based Kalbe Farma.

The pharmaceutical company produces misoprostol, a pill marketed as a preventer of stomach ulcers. The pill is offered with another drug - mifepristone - by the NHS in terminations.

Abortion is illegal in Indonesia except in cases where a woman's life is in danger, a woman has been raped or there is foetal impairment. The consent of a husband is also required.

Mr Rees-Mogg said Kalbe Farma obeyed Indonesian law and that he hadn't been aware that the company made misoprostol - which is sold under the brand Invitec.

He added: "This company does not procure the abortion of babies. It's not my money in these investments and I profit from the total amount of client money we hold, not the investments we make.

"This is not something I would wish to invest in personally but you have a duty as an investment manager not to impose constraints on investors."

The revelations come weeks after Mr Rees-Mogg denounced abortion as "morally indefensible" during an interview on ITV's Good Morning.

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