University lecturer provides evidence to the Environment and Sustainability Committee on the Well-being of Future Generations Bill

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Dr Victoria Jenkins, Senior Lecturer in the College of Law at Swansea University, recently formed part a team of leading environmental lawyers from the UK Environmental Law Association (UKELA) that appeared before the National Assembly for Wales’s Environment and Sustainability Committee, to give their views on how the much welcomed Well-being of Future Generations Bill could be strengthened.

The Well-being of Future Generations Bill aims to help tackle the inter-generational challenges Wales faces in a more joined up and integrated way - ensuring Welsh public services look to the long term. The Bill was introduced by Welsh Government in July 2014 to reinforce the fundamental role that public services in Wales play in helping to deliver our long term goals for the future well-being of Wales.

Dr Jenkins, Professor Robert Lee, Birmingham University, and Dr Haydn Davies, Birmingham City University, who are all members of the Wales Working Party of UKELA, presented evidence on the organisation's behalf.

In their view, the Well-being of Future Generations Bill has the potential to deliver unique, innovative and ground- breaking legislation, showing Wales as an exemplar to the rest of the world in terms of caring about the legacy it will leave future generations and doing something about it. 

However, they believe that the Bill as currently drafted is deficient in a number of respects.  For example, its emphasis on social and economic issues at the expense of protection and enhancement of the environment could lead to an imbalance between these three complementary parts, and a failure to take advantage of their synergies.

Dr Jenkins, said: "The Well-being of Future Generations clearly depends on a sustainable natural resource base and this should be more clearly reflected in the Well-being goals and principle of sustainable development included in this Bill."