I'm very grateful for the Member's comments on this, and I do fully remember his engagement and his party's engagement in these discussions. You're quite right, this is about the cultural change and the leadership that is required to ensure that we do deliver on our sustainable development principle. In fact, if you look in the Act, it says quite clearly:

'any reference to a public body doing something “in accordance with the sustainable development principle” means that the body must act in a manner which seeks to ensure that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.'

That's now in statute. It was important to build on our original principles in terms of sustainable development in the Government of Wales legislation. So, yes, it's early days, clearly, and we do need to assess the impact of the future generations commissioner's role and, indeed, the legislation. 

I have to say, when I was a member of the Finance Committee, we more than once had the future generations commissioner helping us, coming along and actually being extremely helpful in terms of looking at our budget-making process, for example. She has had a powerful influence, for example, on moving towards a more preventative approach to our budgets and looking in terms of health in terms of how we can address the long-term needs and not just crisis-manage the health service—crucial in terms of prudent healthcare, and, indeed, crucial in terms of the aims of the cross-party parliamentary review in terms of the well-being of future generations Act.

There are 44 public bodies that are subject to the well-being of future generations Act, but others—the police, for example—are not devolved. They have embraced the core principles of the well-being of future generations Act, because they see it as a way in which they can improve the way they deliver services. I know that the commissioner herself in a recent article said

'this is the biggest cultural change programme that Wales has ever seen.'

We have to make it as such. We do need to invest in how we go about changing the culture so people will start thinking more about the long term. In Government, we so often think about the short term, the crisis—it's about the long term. Others do look across the world to see how we are delivering on this new piece of legislation. But we will report—she has a duty to report anyway in terms of the future generations report—assessing each step of the way how this is being delivered and learning the lessons.