Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 13th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as set out in the register. Before becoming one of the latest non-hereditary recruits to this House, I ran a city council in Wales, so I am very familiar with the Bill’s principles. It was very interesting to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who lives and works in Wales and is a prominent member of its public service community, and to my noble friend Lady Andrews, who made some apposite remarks about learning from what we have done.

What did Wales do? The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 received Royal Assent in April 2015 and came into force from 1 April 2016. It was concerned with improving the social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales. It has seven goals: a prosperous, resilient, healthier, more equal, globally responsible Wales, of cohesive communities, with a thriving culture and a developing Welsh language. It placed a well-being duty on public bodies to set and publish objectives to show how that vision will be achieved for Wales as set out in the goals. They were expected to take action to ensure that those objectives were met.

There were five things that public bodies needed to consider. They became known as the five ways of working: long term, prevention, integration, collaboration and involvement. The Act established public services boards for each local authority area in Wales to address cross-cutting issues requiring a multiagency approach. Each PSB publishes a local well-being plan setting out its objectives and the steps it will take to meet them. It must set out why it considered that those objectives will maximise the contribution to the well-being goals.

As the leader—I am now the former leader—of Newport City Council, I chaired the One Newport Public Service Board and in this Second Reading debate I would like to share some of that practical working context of using the future generations Act in the public realm. The city of Newport is a very different place from the town it was a generation back, which was searching for a new identity following the decline of steel and other traditional employers. Since then, as my noble friend Lord Howarth will agree, the city has undergone a radical transformation, with entire new communities on former industrial sites, new landmark buildings, award-winning developments and modern infrastructure. There is much reason to be optimistic for the future, but we also needed to recognise that Newport faced significant challenges which affected the well-being of local people.

The task of the One Newport Public Service Board was to ensure that, for generations to come, Newport will be an even better city in which to live, work and invest. The benefits of regeneration, growth and the use of our considerable assets had to be felt by all our citizens and more widely by the communities of the wider city area. The well-being plan was the first step in taking the theoretical to the practical steps of implementation. It set out the PSB’s priorities and actions for five years to improve the economic, social, cultural and environmental well-being of Newport. To give our children and grandchildren a good quality of life, we need to think about how the decisions we make now will impact on them in the future.

We had five interventions for the PSB to work on: the Newport offer; strong, resilient communities; right skills; green and safe places; and sustainable travel. We had a busy, positive and successful first year of implementation. We were mindful of issues and developments—the uncertainty surrounding our future relationship with the EU, and serious and organised crime. Challenges such as these reminded us to act today for a sustainable tomorrow.

I hope my brief practical example of leading and working with the Welsh future generations Act will lend support in this House to the implementation of a similar and better Act for the citizens of our neighbouring country.