Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

I, too, warmly welcome the Bill and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on bringing it forward. As has been said, Wales has similar legislation. In the short time available, I want to comment on two aspects of that legislation that may prove problematic.

The first problem with the Welsh Act is that the duties may not be clear and specific enough to be enforceable; secondly, there is no proper mechanism for legal enforcement. These issues were covered in the report of the Commission on Justice in Wales, which I chaired, and I tried to deal with them in much more detail in the David Renton lecture I gave to the Statute Law Society in November 2019. Suffice it to say today that if legislation is not to be aspirational, and is therefore to be effective, it must create specific legal duties and have a mechanism for enforcement. That is why I warmly welcome this Bill; it has legal duties that can be made specific enough, and there is an enforcement mechanism.

Clause 6 and various provisions of Part 5 address the issues that may be defective in the Welsh Act. The duties are either laid out in sufficiently specific terms or the recommendations made by the commission, which become enforceable, can be made specific enough, and there is an enforcement mechanism before the High Court. Therefore, when enacted, the Bill would be a powerful instrument with appropriate machinery for ensuring that politicians—I pick up, with respect, the point of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, about that—could not give way to short-term or electoral interests or to pressures from others.

Our country’s future could be a real future with this Bill. We simply cannot go on ignoring the reality that without independently enforceable duties, the interests of the short term and the pressures of the electoral cycle will triumph. That is why the creation of legal and enforceable duties under this Bill will provide a real future for our children, our grandchildren and their children. I wish the Bill well.