Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:21 pm on 24 March 2021.
Thank you. I think this is a very short debate for a pretty long report and a very far-reaching piece of legislation. But, anyway, let's give it a stab. It's difficult to do justice to the breadth of it in this debate, but it's something we're certainly going to need to come back to. I think it has been absolutely path-breaking and is acknowledged internationally, and, if it didn't exist, we'd frankly have to invent it, given the extent of the challenges that now face us. I'd like to thank the clerking team and the research staff, who really did engage with this inquiry very enthusiastically and dug out the wealth of evidence that we received, orally and/or in writing, across the whole of Wales, because, obviously, all the evidence had to be taken virtually.
It clearly is a work in progress, but things like the 'Llwybr Newydd' plan that's just been published are probably the best example of the Welsh Government adopting the seven well-being goals and the five ways of working. And I really do think that that plan really has consistency and credibility because it has used the Act to really think deeply about something as complicated as completely overhauling the way we move around our country.
The NHS recovery plan also had a lot of features of the well-being of future generations Act and, frankly, if all public bodies cannot collaborate effectively, think for the long term, integrate, prevent and involve the public in the challenges we are going to be facing in the next Parliament, then we are going to really, really struggle, because we are going to have limited resources and huge challenges.
Nick's already acknowledged that the pandemic has really made us think differently about how we're doing things, but, on top of that, we have the challenge of climate change and the nature emergency hovering over us as well, and the disruption to the established trading relationship with Europe. So, we really do face challenges on multiple fronts.
So, some public bodies are further along on the journey to adopt the well-being of future generations Act than others, and some still argue that annual budgets don't allow them to plan for the long term or commit to integrated and collaborative work, but others fully acknowledge that, whilst there are changes at the edges in how budgets are allocated, the core budget for the core business of whichever body is in question is entirely predictable, and we really do have to thank the people who devised the future generations Act for really encouraging us all to think how we can do things more efficiently, how we can integrate more, how we can eliminate duplication of effort in the very, very challenging times ahead.