Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

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

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, and to have her first-hand experience—you can see why she was a leader. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on bringing this. I had the great privilege of giving this Bill its first ever reading in the Lords on his behalf. As he said—I am paraphrasing because I do not want to swear in your Lordships’ House—the world of tomorrow should not simply be an accumulation of half-baked hopes and the short-term governmental thinking of days gone by.

I am sad to say that short-term thinking still dominates everything Parliament discusses—particularly with this Government, who seem to want simply to maintain the status quo without any imaginative thinking. We are still building new homes that in a few years will have their gas boilers taken out and have to be retrofitted with heat pumps, solar panels and space for electric vehicle charging. We are still expanding airports that we will not be able to use because of the carbon emissions from aircraft. We are still building waste incinerators that local authorities expect to be operating in 30 years, when the UK is meant to be zero carbon.

Interestingly, this is the third debate in two days that has covered this general policy area—a different way of seeing our future and how we should measure our current aims and objectives as fit for purpose. Yesterday we had the debate on well-being as a key indicator from the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, and the debate on embracing a green economy from the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, which I was delighted to speak in.

I am of Welsh origins, and it is lovely to know that Wales has not only adopted these measures but put them into practice. The current emphasis on economic well-being above all else is extremely damaging for future generations. Of course, Greens such as me will always argue for coherent planning to deal with our climate emergency. We want a planet fit for children and grandchildren, whether ours or someone else’s. We might also indulge in a bit of “I told you so”, because we did. I realise that is unhelpful, but I carry on doing it anyway. We have always tried to explain that environmental, social, economic and cultural well-being are all part of the same solution. You cannot have economic well-being if you do not have environmental well-being. That is absolutely the base we should all work on.

We lack enough forward-thinking decision-makers. There is the business-as-usual approach of many politicians who are in denial about the climate crisis. Future generations will look back in astonishment at the blinkered ignorance of it all. Many children and young people are already telling us to fix things for them, whether it is Greta Thunberg or Extinction Rebellion. The young feel that we are running out of time, and it is not really our time we are running out of but theirs. That is why we desperately need public bodies to act in pursuit of the environmental, social, economic and cultural well-being of the United Kingdom in a way that accords with this future generations principle.

We need to follow the Welsh example and have an independent voice that will call out the short-termism that is endemic in our political system. I do not have the rich life experiences of the noble Lord, Lord Bird—although I guess there is still time—but I have always cared about justice. For me, it is about the injustice of having people sleeping on our streets. I have volunteered many times with homeless organisations because it is something I care so deeply about. I feel that we currently have a Government who are not engaging with the social disparities and problems that we face. I urge the Government to give a good hearing to this Bill.