Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]

Lord Crisp Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 13th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in support of this Bill. I offer my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Bird.

As we came here, I reflected that this extraordinary moment in time when we are waiting for a virus to hit us is a good time to think about the long term, the big picture and the frailty of the way we do things. I agree with noble Lords who made the point that we need to get better at long-term thinking; indeed, I hope that it can be changed. There are many positive elements to the Bill. It is good that it has been road-tested in Wales, to an extent, so that we have examples and learning.

Let me pick up one point in the Bill: the report on future trends and risks. This could just be a token thing, but it could also be an important thing: the opportunity for Parliament to discuss the big picture on a regular basis. It could be good in itself, enabling us to pick up some of the weak signals of what may be coming round the corner and may cause us problems in the future. The test is whether that would turn into action, to pick up on some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, about the technical things that will make it either happen or not happen.

Let me use two examples, where I want to ask whether this Bill would enable us to act early enough. The first is that, for years, we have seen the growing problem—forgive me, I am not trying to pun here—of childhood obesity and the health problems that children face. We have seen bits of legislation and bits of action on it, but it is only in the past year that we have understood that the life expectancy of the younger generation will be less than ours, and that that is a consequence of many things that have happened over the years. It has crept up on us, but we now have the understanding that we need to act. It is the same story as in the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, about the environment: this has been going on for a long time, so why has it taken us so long to act on it?

Will the Bill enable us to act and be wise before the event? There are some indications that it would, but that is the test. There is one example that I am worried about—noble Lords must forgive me, but I have only recently discovered and understood the nature of this problem; many others have understood it for a very long time. Around 20,000 children are excluded from school each year, which has a long-term effect on their lives. My noble friend Lord Bird made the point about storing up problems for the future right at the start of his speech. We can see those problems being stored up now. Will this Bill enable us to act and to do something about them before they become chronic, long-term problems? I do not know; it will depend on the technical issues that we were just talking about.

Let me end on a bigger point. My noble friend Lord Bird has caught the moment. This is a really good moment for us to think about these things. Massive changes are happening in society. We need to think about things like Extinction Rebellion, which has had a big impact—bigger than most people thought it would. After we recover, coronavirus will have a big impact on how we do things, from how we behave to how we think about society. There will be other issues like this. There will be issues that will make us think differently about the future, and many of them will come to us with pressure from outside Parliament to make changes. I therefore hope that the Government are listening, that they will be forward-thinking and that they will support the Bill.