Equality and Social Justice Committee

I'm no longer Professor Jones. You should note, for the record, that I left Cardiff University at the end of May. So, I'm now a private individual, and I'm also a non-executive director of Natural Resources Wales. Some of what I say may impinge on areas we've got responsibility for, but I'm not answering as a board member.

It's a very difficult question to answer, because we don't know the counterfactual. In many ways, having a differentiated and devolved political context, policy context and legislative context means that sometimes things don't get worse as badly as they do in other places, and that might be a win, but, obviously, then, when you look at this data, you don't see that big win. It's hard to know what the counterfactual would have been without the Act.

My short answer would be: you cannot expect an active Government to change things like life expectancy when you leave in place all the other direct drivers of poor life expectancies, such as obesogenic environments, very poor nutritional quality of food and lack of incentive or ability to travel actively. So, it was never likely to be the case that we would see big improvements in some of these areas following the enacting of the Act, especially as it's taken a long time for the Act to actually make any difference to policy on the ground or anything else, really.

Okay. I may come back to that in a minute, but who would like to just briefly tell us their initial view as to whether you think this is a transformative or groundbreaking Act, as others have described? Eleanor.

I agree with Calvin that the wider context being what it is and it's getting worse as well—who knows what the impact of that is on the Act. The Act in itself, I think, is a piece of legislation that is groundbreaking, as people have said many times before, but I think what it's trying to bring forward is a culture change, and that will take a really long time for it to come into place.

It wants to change how we think, how we act, how public bodies plan and work, and these things are not things that will happen all of a sudden, and also that lengthy process is made more complicated by all the silos that exist: silos of funding from UK Government, Welsh Government, silos of how organisations are intertwined, and how organisations are very different from each other as well—particular processes. So, all of this makes it very difficult for the Act, based on the people that we spoke to for our two research papers, to implement, and also the institutional complexity in Wales, so the corporate joint committees, the regional partnership boards, the public services boards, the local authorities—. What was the other one?

The community safety partnerships.

The community safety partnerships. All these bodies—. Some of them have the same people, some of them don't, and people aren't sure who works with who, and the amount of resources required to be part of these different bodies and work together to create collaboration, to build trust and then the turnover—. What is coming out from my interviews is that there's a lot happening for these individuals involved in the implementation of the Act, and that makes it very difficult for the Act to come into play and to come to reality.

Yes, but these people are not passive recipients, they can also actively be deciding not to have that large alphabet soup and to do things differently. Some local authorities have joined much wider PSBs, public services boards, than just their own local authority. The shape of local authorities doesn't have to stay exactly the same. Other regional arrangements are available. So, how clear, understandable and accessible do you think the legislation is to the citizen? The pie chart is really very clear, it seems to me, but in terms of how this Act affect people's daily lives, is there more work to be done on that?

Yes, I would say, in terms of how clear and understandable some of the terms are within the Act, some of our interviewees were saying that some of these meanings and some of these concepts are very hard to understand and that sometimes there's a difference in some of the key terms, like ‘well-being’, between different Acts within Wales. So, in comparing how ‘well-being’ is defined in the well-being of future generations Act, it is a little bit different to how it's defined in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 as well. But also they recognise that making space for what ‘well-being’ means in the local area is also an important framework that the Act also allows people to decide.

Okay. Dr Caer Smyth.

I agree that there are challenges, perhaps, with how clear, understandable or accessible the Act is. I think one of the elements to this is that the Act is concerned with working at an organisational level more than an individual level, and it's concerned with duty bearers more than rights holders, which I think can be more challenging for members of the public to understand, because there's not a clear way that an individual can see how the Act affects their rights that they can then go and try and hold a person, hold a body, to account for. So, it is, I think, more opaque for that reason as well, compared to maybe other commissioners.

Fine. Okay, but generally it feels as if institutions haven't really grasped the Act as a way of driving radical change, which is needed anyway, because of limited resources and increased challenges in our society and the world. Professor Jones, I'll come back to you.

Thanks very much, Chair. I spend my life telling people in various contexts you can't cut and reform at the same time, and of course we've had, since the Act and even before the Act, actual austerity and then effective austerity under various Governments, which Welsh Government has been not able or willing to soften for much of the public sector, given the demands of health. So, to expect organisations to engage in radical transformative change when, firstly, they don't have the resources; secondly, they often don't know where they would go if they wanted to go somewhere, because we don't do futures or forecasting very well in Wales at all; and then, thirdly, when in every organisation there's an individual incentive to stay where you are, because if you innovate and get things wrong, you'll probably get shouted at. If you innovate and get things right, you won't get promoted. Add on to that No. 4, which is the almost complete lack of teeth in the Act itself, it's not surprising that we haven't seen radical changes in policy, strategy, regulation or anything else as a direct result of the Act. I think those of us who were involved in it a little bit in its gestation recognised that that was always a limitation of the Act, that you didn't have a big stick to hit people with.

Okay. Suzanna Nesom, did you want to come in?

Probably not, no. Sorry.

Oh, okay. Fine. Eleanor MacKillop.

I just want to add to that. You were asking if organisations and people were changing and grasping the Act and using it to bring about change, and I think, based on our interviews in the two projects, we saw that interviewees in public bodies, PSBs included, talked about how difficult it was to understand the Act, but some others talked about how the Act was an enabler for them to get on with the things that they've always wanted to do. So, for those people who were already converted to the idea of future generations, how important it is and so on, they were grasping that Act and using it to put in place the changes that they thought were necessary. But for the people who didn't really see the relevance of it, didn't think it was that important, thought that there were other things more important to them or their organisation, they thought that there wasn't any risk of sanction or anything like that, they could just get on with doing what they were doing. Or they would rebadge something that they were already doing as well-being of future generations Act, because they were already doing it, so it was just an easy win for them.

Okay. Mick Antoniw.

I'd just like to follow on from Professor Jones's comments. I was involved in the very early stages of the development of the Bill. It started off, of course, as being a sustainability Bill until no-one could actually define what they meant by sustainability, and we came up with the term 'future generations'. Of course, that might be seen to be, perhaps, equally nebulous.

The crux of it is really the environment in which you're taking decisions, which obviously impacts on what you can do. But this issue of teeth was something that came up right at the beginning of the Bill. I've seen in certain European countries yellow card systems—a card where commissioners have an opportunity to flag up something, but they actually have certain powers to either delay, to intervene, or do something in some way.

None of that exists within this Bill. I have to say, I always thought that was a mistake right from the beginning, that you don't give it proper teeth to have the impact that shifts decision making from being something where you tick boxes, or you like to do things as best you can, but it doesn't move you in a particular direction. I'm just wondering, perhaps Calvin Jones and perhaps the others, what your thoughts are about what sort of teeth you think would be needed to add some real impetus to this legislation.

I remember discussing this with the first commissioner, and a little bit with the second commissioner, and it's very clear that they see their only real big stick is naming and shaming. But at the same time, they are very wary about naming and shaming, because they understand also the point that Eleanor makes that culture change and guiding organisations to a better place is what the Act is really about. As soon as you get the stick out, people will take their eyes off the carrot.

There's this constant tension between wanting to chivvy the laggards along, but realising that once you get a reputation as somebody who is an auditor, effectively, then games start being played and boxes start being ticked to make sure that people have got the appropriate procedures and documents, and so on. I think that tension has always stymied the way in which the commissioners have been prepared to name and shame, which was I think the only serious bit of teeth in the Act.

At the same time, I was always of the opinion in the early days—and I spoke to Audit Wales about this—that Audit Wales were the part of Government that was supposed to be commenting on the ways of working within organisations. So, the commissioner's responsibility was for the seven goal areas, and Audit Wales would say to organisations individually, 'You are not doing the five ways of working correctly, and you should change.'

I know in Natural Resources Wales they've had Audit Wales come along to look at how they do things, and comment in terms of the ways of working. Again, that's very soft. Very rarely, if ever, would you see a press release from Audit Wales or a story saying, 'This organisation has fallen foul of the future generations Act', in a way that you certainly would if they didn't fulfil their fiduciary duties. Again, NRW have some experience of that, unfortunately.

It does seem as if there's almost a two-stage system, where governance procedures are very hot on Nolan principle-type things, fiduciary responsibilities and using public money, and the use of those bits of legislation being required to fulfil those duties. When it comes to the more nebulous future generations duties, it does seem that they do not have the same level of punishment or comment.

I certainly think that if Audit Wales were given a strong steer by the Government or the Senedd that they were required to report on the behaviour or performance of an organisation under the five ways of working, to the same standard as they report on their bookkeeping, you might see a bit of difference then.

Thank you. We're running—. Can we come back? I'm sure, with the further questions, we'll come back to this, but we do need to move on or we won't get to all our questions. Julie Morgan, would you like to start us off?

Thank you, and bore da. This question is to Dr Nesom and Dr MacKillop about your research paper. You say that despite being considered groundbreaking, the Act is comparable to other countries' legislation. I wondered if you could provide us with some examples of that.

I'll take that one. We had a look in relation to the future generations commissioner and other bodies in other countries that are similar. We identified at least nine others at the time of the research. The most relevant were Israel and Hungary. Hungary has the ombudsman for future generations, which is embedded into their state law. Basically, it's highly independent and it's legally empowered and has institutional legitimacy.

In terms of Israel, they had the commissioner for future generations, from 2001 to 2006. This body was extremely strong. It granted the ability to delay legislation—and I guess this links to the other question—and it could attend all committee meetings, submit opinions and demand changes. However, after one term, it was disbanded, and this was mainly due to a couple of reasons, or maybe three reasons. The first was that it mainly relied on the personality of that one individual, but also, it cost a lot of money as well. And also, because it had such power, ultimately they disbanded it because it prevented all this legislation from going through.

So, it was because it had too much power.

Yes. So, it's a cautionary tale, really, in terms of how much power you give these bodies.

Those are very interesting. And in Hungary, that continues, does it?

That continues, yes.

Right. Do you think, from the international examples you've looked at, that there is something that we should learn from or take on board in Wales?

In terms of any learnings we can take from Israel in terms of the future generations commissioner, it's that you've got to be careful between the powers that the future generations commissioner has and enabling them to change what's happening on the ground. In Hungary, they have a lot of finance that goes into them, so they can do a lot of things. It's in their constitution that they have this ombudsman as well. And also, guarding the independence of the future generations commissioner seems to be quite important in terms of those case studies.

To add to that, to broaden it out to beyond the future generations commissioner, we also—and I'm not going to bore you with academic conversations—looked at the literature on how sustainable development governance is implemented in different contexts, so looking at what other people have researched. And what people have highlighted is it is messy, it is unpredictable, it takes a lot of time.

But what's really important—there were a few aspects that are really important—is to be participative as much as possible, to negotiate, and that all the stages have to be negotiated, that you need participation and communication across the different policy arenas that are involved—local, national, et cetera—and that you need people to have accepted the general purpose of the legislation and the policy for it to be implemented.

I think it's part and parcel that this is difficult and that it's not easy, and that what Wales is doing, a lot of people are learning from it, because we are the first people to have put it in place. So, I think it's normal that it's going to be difficult and that it's going to take time, as I've said before—culture change, et cetera. But looking at what other countries have done highlights that it's kind of normal, what is going on, and to continue looking at what's happening elsewhere—as you are doing here, in asking what's going on elsewhere—is really important.

Thank you. The next question I wanted to ask was on your views on the Bill recently introduced in Scotland and what your comments were about that. Dr Smyth, would you like to start?

I don't think this touches particularly on my research, so I don't have much to add on this.

Okay. Somebody else? None of you—

I can't comment, sorry.

Calvin, you can't either? No. Okay. Well, we'll leave that. I think it's a private Member's Bill that's going through in Scotland.

Okay. Could I bring in Sioned Williams now?

Thank you. I'm going to be speaking in Welsh. We have touched on it a little bit in terms of the culture shift that was an intention of the Act within public services. A number of you have already said that that varies, depending on whether people feel that they've been empowered by the Act; others don't think it is as relevant. So, in terms of the shift that we have seen, and that you've seen, in public services, is this because of the Act? Are there any amendments that we could make or improvements that we could suggest to the Act that would ensure more of a culture shift? I don't know whether Professor Jones wants to start.

Diolch, Sioned. That's a really interesting question, because, of course, culture is not necessarily directly related to legislation, and attempting to tweak culture by tweaking legislation is going to be a long and rocky road. This is very much a personal experience, from having worked with and for the Welsh Government, NRW and a number of civic organisations. The issues that prevent innovation and transformation in the Welsh public sector are around, I think, the fact that many organisations experience a low-trust environment where there's therefore a culture of box-ticking and covering your backside—if I'm allowed to say that in the Senedd—and various other procedures and processes to make sure that everybody knows that they have done their job.

That's been my experience in a number of institutions over the last 30 years, including when I worked in the council. It is incredibly difficult to change that without understanding that that comes from the very top of the Welsh Government and the Senedd. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said this when they were here a couple of years ago, that we have consensus politics in Wales, and it's a consensus of 19 rabbits and a polar bear. And the polar bear says what happens and all the rabbits say, 'Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am'. So, we've got this problem where we have deeply hierarchical structures, and my feeling is that every organisation will have to break out of that in its own way.

It comes back to what I think all the other members of the panel are saying, that the future generations Act is an excuse for good people to do the right thing, and what I would concentrate on is giving those good people more support, evidence, guidance and wherewithal to do the right thing, rather than necessarily thinking that a tweak of the Act can make a difference. So, it's about, if you are in an organisation and you want to engage in some organisational change, if you're a senior manager, where are the best practice examples, so you know how to engage in an inclusive way with your staff, to take them on a journey with you towards a better future and a more future generations-aware future. For example, let's imagine my land managers in NRW, if I had that hat on, do they know not only how to manage our landscape, but across the entirety of the world, what other places have managed their landscape for future generations in ways that are relevant to us? I think those resources are more important than a small change to the law of the land, because those resources don't exist.

If you look at education, any individual headmaster, deputy headmaster, English teacher, history teacher might have wanted to teach their pupils in a more future generations-oriented way on the basis of the new curriculum. There was no guidance about how we did that coming out from the Welsh Government in that case—I know, because I worked on it quite a bit before the pandemic. So, I think this is as much about resources and help and coddling people and making sure that people who want to do the right thing can, as much as it is about changing the Act. Or maybe that would need changing the Act, because there could be a statutory requirement within the Act to actually have that sort of resource available. That would be a very useful thing.

You're suggesting there that it's an issue of leadership in terms of the Senedd and the Government and whoever in terms of the public bodies who are subject to the Act.

It is, but it's also about hard scientific fact. How do we build tomorrow's economy? I'm probably Wales's only serious environmental economist and I don't really know, because there's no thoroughgoing, I'll say 'scientific', social-scientific work, understanding what the big trends are and how we adapt to them, and how we build, therefore, a more resilient economy, populace—. You know, we're doing some of this work obviously in various ways; it doesn't get brought together in one place, and best practice, as my colleague Kevin Morgan always says, is a very bad traveller. So, without that central repository of, 'What does the future look like?', 'How could your organisation better adapt to it?', without that, I think individuals who want to do the right thing are always going to be struggling. So, it's about resources as well as leadership.

Thank you. Does anyone else want to come in?

Okay. Sioned, Dr Smyth wants to come in.

Adding to what Dr Jones said, resources has obviously come up as a significant barrier in a few reports from different people, and in terms of leadership and thinking of examples where Wales has not been so risk averse, I think the universal basic income pilot is a really interesting example, as that wouldn't have happened. There are so many significant bureaucratic hurdles, it wouldn't have happened without significant political will and leadership. So, that's, I suppose, where we can look to, perhaps, for that particular important resource of leadership.

Dr MacKillop.

If I can add to what has already been said, I think thinking about what could be changed in the legislation, there might be two things that came out from our interviews, which could be, first of all, clarifying the meaning. So, what do we mean by 'well-being', what do we mean by the most important terms in the Act? What do they mean? And then the second one was in relationship to public services boards. I think people said to us that they weren't really sure where PSBs stood. If there was a hierarchy, where did they stand and how were they supposed to work with other bodies? So, this was conducted up to 2021, 2022, these interviews, so this might have changed, as people might have had teething issues at that moment.

But thinking about how we could help the Act to be better implemented, I think following on from what Calvin Jones was talking about, the support, the guidance, are really important, and I think people said to us that they felt like the support they were getting, especially from Welsh Government and from the future generations commissioner was quite varied. The people who felt they got good support felt that they had built really close relationships with individuals, be that the commissioner or individuals within the office or within Welsh Government, and that allowed them to get the guidance that they needed. But for others, they felt that these were quite distant institutions that were sending them mixed messages. So, they felt, 'You're not telling us what to do', and then Welsh Government would say, 'Well, we're not supposed to tell you what to do because that is not what the Act is about', but then they would say, 'But we feel like if we do something that you're not happy with, you're going to penalise us or tell us that we did wrong.' So, there were kind of like—and again, this was conducted a few years ago—there were kind of issues there and people not being sure about where they stood and what kind of ability and capability they had to do different things and to change how they worked based on what the Act was saying.

And another aspect that came out from my interviews were also relating to budgeting. So, how could they do things differently in the spirit of the Act in relationship to pooled budgeting, participatory budgeting, co-budgets, preventative spend? So, these are things that came out in the Auditor General for Wales's report as well, and I think these are practices that are emerging, but they are emerging despite what is already there, and I think people were highlighting that making those things easier could be a way for the Act to be implemented more fully on the ground.

Thank you. I think Calvin Jones touched on the role of the commissioner and the role of the auditor general. How could we make those roles and responsibilities clearer and more effective in the context of the Act?

Professor Jones.

Thank you. So, I'm not a lawyer. There are lawyers in the room who will probably shout at me if I get this wrong. My impression certainly is that Audit Wales's job is to look at how organisations are grappling with the five ways of working, and that the commissioner's job is to encourage organisations to contribute to the seven goal areas, not equally, but holistically. I think that’s pretty clear. I don’t think that needs changing. What I don’t see is a mainstreaming of the five ways of working reporting from Audit Wales. I don’t see where that happens. It may happen; it may go into the Senedd, it may go into your committee, it may go into Government. As a private individual, or somebody who swims in these waters quite a lot—. As I say, we have been there in board meetings; we’ve had future generations and Audit Wales sit in on the basis that they were auditing us on our performance and our ways of working, and we certainly got feedback from that, so we then acted on that feedback.

But that seems quite a low level and gentle thing, and it does not seem, from my experience for what it's worth, because I was on the outside obviously, that doesn’t feel like it's the bread-and-butter work of what Audit Wales does. And it does feel to me—we may come to this later, we may not—that, to some degree, the future generations Act is slightly treated as second-class legislation. Maybe because it’s a bit fuzzy, maybe because it’s the kind of first big one that we really did, or maybe just because devolved legislation is not from His Majesty's Government. But when I used to argue with my foresters about why I couldn’t do something, and they’d say, 'Ah, well, the Forestry Act 1967', and I was like, 'Yes, but the future generations Act 2015', that never really moved them anywhere.

So, I do feel like, maybe, when you’ve got individuals and organisations who have a strong status quo or existing, incumbent legislation in an area that they are well aware of—if that’s like a procurement thing, or if it’s a particular piece of legality that is in their discipline area—they think about that a lot more than they think about the future generations Act, which notionally applies across the entire piece, but in a more fuzzy way, and it's less obvious when you fall foul of the future generations Act than it is when you fall foul of getting your audit wrong, or getting your accounts wrong.

So, I think, in some ways, the FG Act is little bit secondary when it comes into competition with other things. And that, I think, is more of a problem than understanding who does what. I think, as long as Audit Wales understand what their job is, and they do it, as long as the FG commissioner’s office understand their jobs and they do them, that shouldn’t be a problem.

I think Caer Smyth wants to come in.

I suppose there will probably be more questions on enforcement coming up, so I won't discuss that early now.

Just adding to what Dr Jones said, I think there is scope. So, the reporting requirement for the auditor general is an accountability mechanism; it’s not really enforcement. But there’s scope, I think, to strengthen the requirements on public bodies as they respond to the auditor general's report. I think, as I understand it in the legislation, the public bodies are required to give a formal response to the Auditor General for Wales's report, but it’s not super clear what that entails, what it should include. It could be something a little bit more significant than what it is currently, and it’s also not clear where these sit. I couldn’t find the formal responses on the Audit Wales website or on the websites of the public bodies that there were reports on. And I think that similar things could be done to strengthen the reviewing and reporting requirements for the commissioner, but I think we’ll get to that.

In terms of what Dr Jones said, and some of the kind of—. There are points where, say, somebody in NRW has very clear, strict duties that they’re very used to dealing with, up against a kind of slightly more ambiguous duty under the Act. I think, again, I’ll talk about enforcement a little bit more in later questions. There are areas in the Act where there are clearer enforcement duties, but perhaps this is partly a question of time that these stricter enforcement duties in other Acts are really clear, really bedded in. The areas where there are clear duties in the Act haven’t emerged yet as clearly, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t in the future.

Okay. Sioned, Mick Antoniw just wanted to come in.

Just one point on that. Do you think that part of the problem, if there is a problem, is the lack of transparency as to decisions that are taken on the application of the Act? I’ve seen many cases where bodies have referred to, 'We’ve taken account of having regard to the future generations, et cetera', but without any explanation as to, 'What we have considered, how we have considered it, how this decision came about applying to that, what we might have done had we had more resources but within the resources we have.' There is a lack of transparency about decisions, so it does become more of a bureaucratic tick-box exercise, rather than something that shows exactly how the Act has been considered and applied in the decision-making process.

Briefly, yes, I agree. I think that is an issue, and I think maybe there are points where—. Say, the Welsh Language Commissioner, one of the clearer duties that they have is to require an organisation to take specific steps or to set out an action plan if there's a particular thing where they have failed to comply. I think maybe this is getting into the commissioner's reviewing power, so maybe I don't touch on this now, but I think there's scope there to have public bodies have an action plan and set it out more clearly.

Okay, thank you.

Okay. Can I go back to Sioned Williams?

I think that Calvin Jones wanted to come back in.

Okay.

Yes, very quickly, Chair. Interestingly, on that point about using the Act and being transparent about how it drives decisions, I remember when I sat upon the stand in the public inquiry on the M4 relief road, and after that the planning inspector very strongly coming down in favour of the road, and then the former First Minister saying, 'No, we're not going to build it.' Now, Mark did not say that it was because of the future generations Act. Very clearly, he did not say it in the letter at all. He didn't mention the future generations Act, if I remember correctly. He said, 'It's because it's too expensive and we have a different view on the environmental costs.' Part of me thought, 'Is that deliberate?', because he's worried that if he places this 'no' on the back of the FG Act, it's going to be open to judicial review or some other process, which would say, 'This is really fuzzy and you can't possibly prove this or that', and it was easier just to say, 'No, because we haven't got the money.' That worried me at the time, because it seemed to me that the FG Act should have quite clearly been a strong weight on the scales against the road. In all the evidence, it was clearly there. It was clearly mentioned. The commissioner didn't take the stand, but lots of people did on her behalf, as it were. But when it came to the actual decision, it was gone. I thought that was interesting, because it did imply to me that maybe the lawyers in Welsh Government, who then decided not to build the road, didn't want to put the pressure of that on the Act and put it somewhere else instead. That is an interesting reflection, I think.

Okay. Sioned Williams.

Thank you. Just going back, one of the things that's central to the Act, of course, is public participation, community involvement, in terms of how the Act is implemented and so on, and used in exactly that way by public bodies. So, what are your reflections with regard to how this has been happening in terms of the development of the Act over time, in terms of awareness amongst the public in terms of the Act, and also in terms of the level of community involvement?

Who wants to start? Dr Nesom.

Yes. So, in our research, we briefly touched upon 'The Wales We Want' national conversation that took place, and how lots of local areas were trying to replicate that in making these well-being plans. So, there were a couple of PSBs that we looked at who were trying to replicate this and trying to talk to some marginalised communities in their local areas, and an interviewee said that it had really determined the way that they were looking at the geography and how to implement the Act in terms of the local areas, within the PSB boundary as well. So, I think that obviously shows that there was some community engagement there. Others, however, were questioning the extent to which they were able to capture all demographics and how they were able to capture future generations as well. So, a lot of people, in the interviews, that we spoke to spoke about how they were going into schools, going into community groups with young people, but maybe they weren't able to capture every voice in those marginalised communities.

Okay. Dr Smyth.

I would just point to the work of Dr Victoria Jenkins in Swansea University, who has looked at issues of community governance under the Act. I think that she's highlighted potential issues with the coverage, size and function of community representation by community councils in the Act and worries that it's community governance on behalf of communities more than with communities, which obviously jars with the community involvement.

I would also note that I've looked for surveys and polling around public awareness of the Act in the national survey for Wales and the Welsh election study, and maybe it was just my issue, but I couldn't find it. So, I don't know if that's—. This, obviously, would be a pretty good way of gauging public awareness of the Act and may be something to think of in the wider evaluation process.

Okay. It's definitely there front and centre in the latest five-year report and the auditor general's report, so it's something I'm sure we're going to explore. Mick Antoniw.

You've answered most of the questions that I wanted to ask, which were about transparency, but I wanted to ask you a few questions really going into the enforcement area. I don't know if I'm treading on anyone else's toes on that.

Yes, Altaf Hussain is going to be asking about enforcement.

Okay. Well, shall I leave my questions, then, until those come in, because I'd like to come in after those.

Okay. Yes.

There is one point, just about the legislation and how it interacts with other legislation, but I think that that will come into the enforcement thing as well, if that's okay.

Okay. So, Altaf Hussain, could you ask your questions now?

Thank you, Chair. Can you hear me?

Yes, absolutely fine.

Great. Thank you very much. My question area is enforcement. Now, people often criticise the Act because they feel that there are not strong enough ways to make sure that organisations actually follow its rules. What do you think about this and how can we encourage these organisations to use the Act properly while still making sure that they are held responsible if they don't?

Dr Smyth.

So, this idea of this perceived lack of enforcement mechanisms is an issue that has come up with the Act a few times. Drawing on the paper I wrote with Professor Elen Stokes, we highlighted some provisions in the Act that do seem to have clear legal duties that would be amenable to judicial review. Specifically, these would be things like section 5(2) that requires public bodies to take account of the five ways of working. Similarly, the duty in section 14(2) for public bodies to take into account guidance published by the Welsh Ministers. The thing to note about this is that these are procedural duties, rather than substantive duties, so sometimes these duties have a limited scope for a judicial review. However, that's true of many quite similar provisions in environmental law and things in the environmental impact assessment regime that have long being accepted as being amenable to judicial review. So, there are these very clear legal duties that are there in the Act.

There have been a few times, a few cases, most famously the case of the school closure in Neath Port Talbot, where somebody applied for a judicial review under the Act and they were denied permission. So, that's happened a few times. I don't know the grounds in the Act. They don't have judgments because they were denied permission. But I think that the problem, or the area that people criticise in the Act is often section 3 and its duty to carry out sustainable development. Again, in the paper, we argue that actually there is maybe a little bit more scope in section 3 than its often held to have. The action that a public body has to set and publish well-being objectives, that's a clear duty. So, if they just failed completely to set these objectives, that would be a failure, a clear breach of duty. That they take all reasonable steps to meet these objectives—that's where it gets a bit kind of vague again, and that's maybe something where we see these cases fail. But again, it's arguable—. So, 'reasonable' is often a very high standard for judicial review, a high kind of threshold to meet—for a decision to be seen as unreasonable, it's kind of a high standard. But it's arguable that if the published body sets out the steps that it's going to take to meet the objectives in its published statements, then that maybe provides a clear benchmark for determining what is or what is not reasonable.

So, there is scope again in the future. Maybe if these cases are successful in coming to the courts, we might see this kind of interpreted a bit more, so again it's, I suppose, highlighting that there are areas that are kind of amenable to judicial review, that are a bit clearer. And there's scope that we might see, in future cases, courts' interpretation of this, and see that there is scope for judicial review. Having said all that, I highlight what the commissioner said in their evidence, that there are problems with relying on judicial review. It is obviously not hugely accessible and relates to—. It would have to be brought by a class of persons rather than an individual. So, these are issues with relying on judicial review, so looking for other routes of enforcement would probably be better, especially—. A lot of the things we talk about—it's about kind of a culture shift and more political than legal accountability. So, I've focused on the areas where it could be available for judicial review, but also with the proviso that I don't think that's maybe the best route.

Okay. Altaf.

About the judicial review, you did give the example of Port Talbot, but can you expand on the points made in your paper in which you suggest that given the Act’s emphasis, and various governance and accountability safeguards, the extent to which formal enforcement is needed can be questioned?

I suppose I've slightly touched on that, at the end, I think, that because the kind of—. It's maybe that building a platform for political accountability is maybe a more—. Does that kind of fit with the aims of the Act a little bit better than going the judicial review route, and sort of strengthening political accountability, and maybe in terms of greater ability to name and shame, something I know that Dr Jones mentioned at the start—? So, maybe that route would be better for the Act. And I think we're possibly talking about section 20 powers in a later question, but I think the section 20 powers route is maybe a way that that kind of enforcement, that kind of route, the political accountability route, could be strengthened.

Thank you, Dr Smyth. And what are your views on the commissioner's section 20 powers under the Act and how it has been used to date? Is there scope to strengthen this power, either through the legislation or through guidance on its application?

Great, thank you. It's a nice move between the two. Yes, so there have been two reviews undertaken, I think, using this power, so obviously not a huge amount, so I suppose it seems like one of the issues, one of the reasons, there hasn't been many reviews suggested in the commissioner's evidence—it's a question of resourcing for one. I think, looking again at the Welsh Language Commissioner's powers, so the kind of really hard-edged powers that they have, I don't think would be easily applied, or I don't think it's going to change what the future generations commissioner does—like civil penalty. That kind of stuff I don't think would be suited to the future generations commissioner's role. But where the commissioner does review and does a report from that review, section 22, which sets out the response of the public body to that report, says they must take all reasonable steps to follow the course of action set out in the recommendation, unless there are good reasons or alternative courses of action. It's already been highlighted, I think, in other papers, so Hayden Davies's 2017 paper. Probably, public bodies will, more likely than not, accept the recommendations of the commissioner. It's unlikely that they'll reject them, as it tends to go in these similar review and reporting powers.

But there's nothing in that part of the Act that says anything about when they accept, 'Fair enough, yes, good recommendation. We'll endeavour to do that'—. There's no course of action or anything set there, and so maybe that's an area where these review and reporting requirements could be strengthened, so that the public body sees the recommendation of the commissioner and says, 'This is the course of action, these are the steps we'll undertake to meet that recommendation.' So, strengthening those review and reporting requirements more there would be, maybe, a way of strengthening the enforcement mechanisms in the Act and that political accountability side.

Okay. Altaf Hussain, did you have any other questions?

Yes, the last question, really. Coming to strengthening enforcement, are there other options available apart from a court system?

I think the review and reporting requirements are maybe that other option, outside of the court system. Going back to a previous response I had around the auditor general's report, something beyond a formal response to the auditor general's reports—maybe that's an area where there's scope for enforcement or stronger accountability mechanisms outside of the court. And something stronger in terms of not just, 'Yes, I agree with the commissioner's recommendations', but, 'Here is how I'm going to meet them.' These are, I think, two ways of strengthening mechanisms outside of the court.

One thing to note as well, I suppose, is I don't think it's maybe hugely clear what triggers the review. So, two have been undertaken, and it's said in the commissioner's evidence that it's the

'ultimate form of advice when our usual form of advice had not been sufficiently considered or where a recurring issue had been flagged many times as being a key barrier'.

So, it's maybe greater transparency here. How are these recurring issues identified or flagged? Maybe there's scope for greater transparency there as well.

Mick Antoniw.

Thank you, Dr Smyth. Thank you, Chair.

Just to put some suggestions on this, because this really goes to part of the nub as to the strength of legislation. It's well known that if you want to make legislation weak, you stick in the terms 'reasonable' and 'reasonably practical' and that, more or less, wipes away any real focus. But the issue of the role of the standards commissioner within this—. Has any thought been given, any analysis being done or research being done in terms of what the role might be of a standards commissioner in terms of being able to intervene, to challenge? What the Act does is it's a framework, it seeks to influence, and it imposes a certain number of duties. Now, the real crux of it comes down to how are those duties implemented, how are they interpreted, and what is the enforceability of them, or the ability to challenge them. It seems to me that one of the issues, and I know this emerged very much at the very beginning of the thinking process of the legislation, was the role of the standards commissioner, having a right to actually intervene in some particular way, if there was a view that a duty was not being complied with.

So, I suppose it's a question of the thought that some sort of justiciability is what's missing from the legislation, to give it that extra set of teeth that enables the minds to be focused of all the bodies that are applying the legislation, that there is a potential area of challenge that might take place. Things like Sewel and so on, they're in legislation, but they're considered non-justiciable. I think it's probably the same as much of the duties, although they are referred to in various judicial reviews from time to time. So, any thoughts about how that might be tightened up and what the role of the standards commissioner might be, in terms of the ability and the resources to be able to intervene and challenge in, I suppose, what would be quite a high barrier to do so, and the fact that that isn't there at the moment.

I don't have too much to say on the role of the standards commissioner. It's an interesting idea. It's not something that we've looked at in the research, so—. Yes, the taking 'all reasonable steps' to meet the objectives in section 3 is—. That's, I think, a bit of an issue right there. But, as I said, I think there's, arguably, as I said in the paper, scope in looking at the public body's published statements as a kind of—. If they've said, 'This is what we are going to do and this is how we are going to do it', and if they flagrantly do not do that, so it's overwhelming or kind of like—. I think the definitions of Wednesbury unreasonableness are always kind of confusing and they multiply, but demonstrable wrongness is sometimes seen as—. That's the kind of threshold. So, if a public body said, 'These are clearly the steps we're taking', and if they really demonstrably do something against those steps, maybe that's a kind of—. That might be clearly demonstrably unreasonable in a way that would be amenable to judicial review.

Okay. Calvin Jones wanted to come in and then Sioned.

I think there's a slight elephant in the room here in that we're talking about well-being objectives that are set by the bodies themselves and that don't necessarily meet the standard of making the change you want to see in the world, if you like. I know because I—. It's a long time ago now—it was 2019—that I, on behalf of the commission, trawled through all the well-being objectives from the first round that were to do with anything to do with prosperity of the economy in the future, and there wasn't a single transformational thing amongst them. So, it's not hugely surprising that you don't find a high level of intervention and a high level of bodies who are demonstrably working against what they said they would do, because they said they would do things they knew they could do, and I think that's a bit of an issue. And Ministers suffer from this as well as other bodies, in that, if you set your objectives lacking timescales, milestones, measurability, then it's quite easy to say that you're doing them, because you never get there, because you never said where you're going to get to in any hard terms.

And this was certainly recognised—I've not spoken to the second commissioner, but—it was certainly recognised by the first commissioner and her staff that the initial response to the requirement for well-being objectives for individual bodies and for PSBs was, 'Right, what do we know we can get done in the timescale that we need to get it done? Let's put those down as objectives and then we'll do them', rather than, 'What would be stretching or transformative?' Now, that may well have got—I think that has got—better. With my NRW hat on, I've looked at the PSB well-being plans in terms of the PSB plans' impact on the environment, and, essentially, they're better than the first round were, certainly in terms of individual agencies. But it's also notable that they are still really very procedural and really quite inward-looking—so, just as an example off the top of my head, the Carmarthenshire PSB well-being objective doesn't mention cows or land or anything—because they're very much focused on what organisations normally do within their constituencies. So, they may seek to reform certain services for which they have a duty anyway within their well-being objectives, but they don't actually talk about the transformation of the spatial area and the people within that area to become more regenerative, resilient or whatever.

So, I think the narrowness and maybe lack of ambition in some of the objectives means that all the other potential sticks, whether it's the standards commissioner or anybody else, are irrelevant because they've already set themselves up to be able to succeed, possibly—if I'm being cynical.

Okay, thank you. Can I just bring in Sioned Williams and then I'll come to you, Eleanor?

Yes, just to build on that point, and it's a similar point in terms of consistency as well between the practices in different organisations in applying the Act in setting the objectives, would having some sort of plan or scheme to be accountable to, as was suggested, be helpful in terms of this, in terms of ensuring that consistency? And as Professor Jones mentioned just now, perhaps setting a challenge in terms of the ambition of those objectives within the plan?

Who wants to pick up on that? Eleanor.

So, building on what Calvin was talking about, I think the well-being plans and the objectives and so on, how they are being made sense of, or made reality at different levels—let's say the PSBs for instance—that's a very bureaucratic process, as Calvin said. And I think by focusing on the specific things, which are the tangible things—because this is legislation that is still seen as a very abstract thing, I think, for a lot of people—'What do these principles mean? The ways of working, the objectives, what do they mean in reality for me and my local area?'—. And I think people are still, at least, when we spoke to them, until 2021, 2022, very much struggling with, 'What does that mean for me?' And I think this is where, instead of maybe setting up more guidance and so on, it's really the face-to-face support, who can they speak to, who can help them make sense of this for their organisation.

So, by focusing on the bureaucratic processes, then you end up with very unambitious plans, like Calvin was saying: people say, 'What can we put in here that's going to pass?' And people talked to us about how they saw the commissioner and the office as marking their plans. So, they saw it as—. Whether that was right or wrong, they saw it as marking their plans. And so it was more seen as an assessment of how well they were doing, but not really based on the philosophy of the Act, more on, 'Did we pass the test and can we now move on to something else?' So, I think more support on tap, maybe embedded—. I think, since we've done the interviews, there's been more of that happening from Welsh Government and the future generations commissioner's office. I don't know if that has changed in the last few years, but that is what people were saying was really missing. There were a lot of isolated conversations, and people not being sure about what was expected of them and what they should be doing. But it's, again, coming back to the whole point of, for decades, if not centuries, especially at the local level, they have had very little, I don't know, ambition and ability to do things differently. They were just very top down, and this legislation is, again, quite top down. And now they are being asked to implement these principles and given the freedom to do it, but they aren't really sure what freedom they have to do it. So, I think more communication and being clear about what space have they got to be creative and to do something really different—.

Okay. Calvin Jones, and then I'm going to go to Jane Dodds.

So, just very briefly on Sioned's point, I think there's an absolutely clear requirement for a certain level of ambition and quality in the plans, but, at the same time, there's a tension between standardisation and bespokeness to an area. So, for example, I think the Gwent PSB's desire for a Marmot county—you know, according to the current public health standards—is really interesting, really different, really very enthusiastic. Now, you wouldn't want to stop them doing that or necessarily replicate it across the whole of Wales in areas which weren't so enthusiastic about that idea. So, I think there's a sweet spot between ensuring quality on almost like a British standard perspective, so, 'Have you done this properly? Is this genuinely science based, in terms of what your area faces in terms of whether it's child poverty, ecological degradation, affecting well-being, whatever it is?', so that, yes, and leaving that space to experiment and be innovative and bespoke to your own area.

The second point I want to make, and I want to make it now in case I don't get a chance, is that Eleanor was talking about the resources available within the commission and in bodies under the Act. Let's remember we are trying to guide an almost £30 billion public sector with a body that is funded to the tune of £1.6 million per annum. Now, that is absolutely laughable. And we can talk all day and all night about how we could tweak the Act here, encourage culture change there, do different things over in this place to make it a little bit more transparent, bring people in in this way—if you are trying to put a sticking plaster over the iceberg hole in the Titanic, you will never get anywhere. It's simply impossible to do this job well with what, a dozen, two dozen staff maximum in the office and then a few more in Audit Wales who might take an interest, and then expect that body to be able to provide all the resources that we've been talking about. We've all agreed, I think, that guidance, engagement, embeddedness is required. Even if the budget of the commissioner and his office was 10 times larger, it would still be laughable in the face of almost £30 billion of public spending.

Thank you. Julie Morgan, you wanted to just follow up on something.

Yes, just quickly. In terms of transformational decisions, I think we've had two, particularly, mentioned here today—the no-go on the M4 and the basic income supplement for care leavers. I just wondered if the panel feel—had we had no future generations Act, whether these would have gone ahead.

A quick one. Who wants to say, quickly?

The M4 is an interesting one, as Dr Jones said—. So, I think the well-being of future generations Act isn't mentioned in the decision letter, but, in the Senedd debate on 4 June, where the First Minister Mark Drakeford talked about it, he was asked specifically if the future generations Act played a role in his decision making, and he said that he did not disagree with the inspector's interpretation of the Act. So, that would suggest in a very narrow way that it didn't inform the decision, but in the wider view I would argue that it did, because it gave the Gwent Wildlife Trust and the other environmental objectors and objectors to that scheme a platform from which to make these arguments and design their case. So, I would argue—. I know more about the M4 relief road than I do about the UBI; I know I highlighted it. But, so, yes.

Okay. Calvin Jones, briefly.

I completely agree that the—[Inaudible.] The change has been in what we call the authorising environment. So, now, it is understood by Ministers and others that, if you make tough decisions that you think are radical and required decisions, you have a modicum of cover, even if it's not direct cover. So, I think that, if I'm honest, it's difficult to imagine Lee Waters and the 20 mph without imagining the Act first. That's in part because, obviously, Lee was in civic society before he came into Government and he was part of the national conversation—Sustrans, IWA—so he would have been fully equipped with having the Act at his back even though it wasn't part of his direct decision on the 20 mph. So, I think that's absolutely true, that the Act gives coverage for some decisions to be made in areas that are obviously future generations related. I think that, probably, the Mark Drakeford Government made decisions that it would be difficult to imagine them making if the Act had never existed.

Okay. We'll go to Jane Dodds now. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm going to ask my questions in Welsh, and I want to start with a question that I want to come back to all of you with at the end. I want to ask everybody that comes before us the same question as well. You're all experts in this Act. In one sentence, what would you tell the public is the impact that this Act has on their lives now or in the future? So, if it's all right, I'll come back to that when I finish my questioning regarding evaluation and review of the Act.

First of all, may I ask, in your view, what sort of priorities should we be concentrating on as a committee? We are here 10 years after the Act was introduced. What should we as a committee look at? What's important, in your view? What should we hear about, or who should we hear from? I'm not sure who'd like to go first, perhaps Dr Caer Smyth in the room.

They're difficult questions, and I'll think about the one sentence—.

Come back to that later.

What should your priorities as a committee be? I suppose, if there are small tweaks, I think things that I mentioned in terms of reporting requirements. If there are small tweaks that can be made that can enhance the Act, then great. I do agree, however, with what's been discussed in the panel so far today that I think the ambition of this scrutiny should go beyond those small tweaks. I suppose, again, agreeing with the evidence of the commissioner, any significant changes to the Act, or a deep look at the Act, should involve a good degree of community involvement and should be participatory, as that's fundamental to the Act.

Okay. Who's going—? Suzanna Nesom.

Just some things that the committee might want to consider: how the Act is understood by different organisations and at what level; whether there's any confusion, and whether Welsh Government needs to give any guidance on that; thinking about whether there's any extra support that Welsh Government could give to these organisations, and whether the support that they currently get is the right kind of support; and then there's a question about whether well-being plans are the right way to implement this Act, and whether well-being assessments are the right way as well. So, those are things I would consider.

Thank you. And Dr MacKillop, in the room, as well.

Just to add a little bit, I think not just support from Welsh Government, but I think from all the potential institutions that are involved in this Act becoming reality. And on whether the well-being plans and the assessments are the right way of doing it—are they too bureaucratic? Is this the right route for cultural change? I don't know. Could there also be other measures, policy, incentives, as I mentioned before, on how budgets are formulated and spent? Could that be a way of looking beyond legislation to help the Act become reality?

Diolch. Dr Jones.

I'd be delighted if this committee was to recommend that the Government ensure that there was a statutory mechanism of funding for the future generations commissioner's office. I'd suggest a 0.1 per cent cut for every single body under the auspices of the Act. That would give you about £30 million year, which would be a start, at least. Because without sufficient funding, either directly into the commissioner's office or to a parallel body, which you might call Y Pair Dyfodol, a future generations lab, which could do all the guidance, science and so on to help bodies understand where they were going—that's an option as well. Without really strong funding for both the governance and operation of the office and for the guidance elements, resourcing elements—. Without those being statutorily in place for the future Governments, be they worse than this one—you could not take it away—without those, I think all the other talk is just talk.

Thank you. I know the Altaf wants to come in—just one minute, Altaf. Could I just follow up on that, please, with Dr Jones? You mentioned, didn't you, the amount of money that was going into the office, and you've given us an idea there of that sum. So, in your view, how can we ensure that the Act provides that funding allocation that we want to see? Is there more money to come in, in your view? What can we do to ensure that there is sufficient funding? And I'm sure Altaf will have a question as well. Thank you. To Dr Jones, please, if that's okay.

I'm not a legislative expert, but I think you need a statutory and a hypothecated part of the Welsh block grant to be dedicated to, arguably, every commissioner, but certainly the future generations commissioner, in order that there is no question as to when the block grant comes in—. If there's £25 billion that is allocated to the Welsh Government for devolved issues, then there should be, let's say, £25 million—only 0.1 per cent—which will be allocated to the commission to make sure those moneys are spent properly. That's big. If I do a project and I am—[Inaudible.]—evaluation of my project, I'm looking at 5 per cent, not 0.1 per cent. So, I'm not talking about a big amount of money here. Without that, any future Government that wants to hobble the office would just not give it money.

We've got a National Infrastructure Commission, which is looking at similar things in this in the infrastructure area. It gets £400,000 a year, and certainly the head has been jumping up and down about that. So, unless you invest in foundational things, you won't get good decisions made.

Thank you. And Altaf.

Thank you very much, Jane. It was about when we talk about strengthening support for the organisations from the Government. Is the future generations Act outside or within our devolved services in Wales?

So, you're asking whether things need to change constitutionally. While you're thinking about it, Eleanor, do you want to come back on the earlier question?

Yes. What I was going to say was I think what is trying to be brought forward is a complete change in how we work, how decisions are made, how public services are delivered, what matters et cetera. And I think what is already in place, which are multiple silos, multiple very established ways of doing things, of funding, of decision making, these are—. It's like a square with a circle. And I think the issue here is that these organisations, public bodies, members of public services boards and so on, are faced with multiple demands that are quite contradictory. So, I think revising the expectations of—. If the Act is the most important thing, how can we make everything else a little bit easier, a little bit more flexible? So, the funding streams, which are usually based on 12 months—how does that provide and promote long term and prevention? How could you maybe earmark a potential part of the funding provided to local authorities or the public bodies to say, ‘This should be spent in a preventative way’? Could that be a way to push forward in a way that isn't enforcement fully, but kind of encouraging by saying, ‘Okay, so if 5 per cent of your budget has to be dedicated to prevention, what are you going to do about it? How are you going to still allow for some creativity and innovation there based on different places?’ So, that could be a way that they could go ahead with it.

Thank you, Chair. I just want to ensure that nobody wants to answer Altaf's question. I'm not sure that Altaf has had an answer.

My sense was that, Altaf, you were asking about all the things that prevent us doing what we want to do, like the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, the railways.

Whether the future generations Act is only for devolved services, or it goes beyond.

Yes, only some of our services are devolved. We still have a railway service where we're told that Cambridge to Oxford is—

We have to have the balance, and we can't have that if we don't have everything devolved. So, are we talking about those other organisations that are not devolved, and we want to apply the future generations Act?

Can I briefly come in on that, Chair?

Okay. I think Eleanor had her hand up first, and then I'll come to you, Calvin.

I'm happy for Calvin to go first if he wants to.

Fine. Calvin, you go first.

I can’t imagine that non-devolved organisations would be ever formally under the remit of the Act, but I certainly have experience of lots of organisations within Wales that aren't under the Act—my own former department in university, for example—that actively went out of their way to try to be compliant with the Act. We saw it was a good idea. So, again, it's to persuade the others that you can see it's a good idea, and that people who want to do the right thing will use that as an example and try and fulfil that example. So, I think it's a very good thing to have, even if it's not legally required of those bodies.

I was going to say, the public bodies that we interviewed talked about how PSBs were a very old way of implementing a very new way of thinking, and especially PSBs that would be close to the border would say that they would want to work with maybe English public bodies, and weren't really able to, because of the way the Act was formulated.

Another thing that came out was, on issues such as climate change—well, these are not limited to specific boundaries, and so thinking about it from a very place-based approach might actually limit what kind of impact you might be able to have with your policies, because you are formulating them from a very specific territorial angle, whereas if you were able to work much more widely beyond your PSB, beyond Wales, beyond the UK, you could talk about and think together about this as a way of addressing some of these issues that are global.

Sioned, did you want to ask a question? I'm not sure whether it has been answered.

Yes, I just wanted to come in on that point a little bit in terms of devolution. To what extent do you think that the current devolution settlement affects the effectiveness of the Act—on how effective it is?

Who would like to answer that?

Caer Smyth has her hand up.

Just one small point on devolution and its impact on the implementation of the Act, and returning to courts. I think one of the issues that we are seeing, and was definitely true in the case of the Neath Port Talbot school closure case, because there is—. The Act is part of a distinct and emerging legal culture in Wales, but these cases are not being decided by Welsh judges because there are no Welsh judges in the Welsh justice system. So, I think if we had judges who were particularly attuned to the distinct and emerging nature of Welsh law in particular, like Welsh environmental law and Welsh sustainable development law—this is an area where there is an emerging Welsh legal identity—that would help us, I think, see more cases concerning the Act. So, one of the issues—. I agree with Lord Thomas in his 2019 report of the Commission on Justice in Wales that there should be a Welsh jurisdiction distinct from England.

Thank you for that. Calvin Jones, you wanted to come back in.

Just to say that I think devolution does hamper the effectiveness of the Act. So, for example—. And not just this Act. You might want to do things on a spatial scale, for example to support communities, which the internal market Act says you can't. I know that there have been attempts to build, for example, different sorts of houses in Wales that have raised eyebrows from across the border, and the internal market Act has been threatened as potential retaliation. So, I think it's a real problem that, obviously, power devolved is power retained, so you will always have to work within the strictures of the wider—. Given the current status quo, you have to work within the strictures, and that does restrict a number of Welsh legislative innovations.

Are you saying that the internal market Act has prevented us building net-zero timber-framed housing?

No, I'm saying that—. I've been told informally that somebody involved in a timber-framed housing project was called by a non-Welsh based construction company, and the tenor of the conversation was, 'You do realise this is going to fall foul of the internal market Act?'

Okay, we might want to follow that up subsequently. Jane, back to you.

Thank you, Chair. Just to finish, could I just go back to what I was asking at the beginning, please? That is, a sentence from each of you regarding how you'd explain to the public about the Act and the impact it's having on their lives now or in the future. I don't know who'd like to start. Shall I go to the people in the room first, perhaps? Dr Caer Smyth, what do you think? One sentence.

I can give it a go; I don't think it's going to be wildly inspiring. I suppose we can see we are facing crises like the climate crisis that are seriously damaging and will damage future generations, and our public bodies that sort stuff out for us every day are focused on firefighting and doing everyday work, and it's very hard to see beyond that everyday work. The Act gets public bodies to work for future generations and to look past that everyday firefighting.

Thank you. I counted three sentences there, but thank you. Dr Nesom.

Yes, it's a very tricky question. I'd probably echo what Caer was saying that the Act provides a framework for our public bodies to think about sustainable development. However, it's potentially transformative, but it hasn't been realised yet, and it will take time for this culture shift that's needed.

Thank you.

Thank you. And Dr MacKillop.

I want to echo that—it's exactly what I wrote. I said, 'Not realised yet but has huge potential', and I think there's a lot of work still needed to be done on what it means and what it looks like in reality.

Diolch. And Dr Jones.

I think we have to start thinking about the Act as an outcome of the way that Welsh Government and the Senedd think and do business, not as a thing that drives public bodies. The way in which policy and politics in Wales is carried out leads to things like the Act, but also leads to cars going past you at 20 mph, not 30 mph, and that's something that should be celebrated.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. I have got other questions, but I'm looking at the time. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, all of you, for your contributions and for setting the scene for the things we need to tie down as we take this inquiry forward. You will be sent a transcript of what you said and, obviously, if it's been incorrectly heard, please do make sure you correct it. Otherwise, thank you very much indeed for coming along and for your interest in this important Act. Thank you.