Environment committee  This is now a law. It became law in April of this year, so it's just become law. We passed the bill. It received royal assent last year, became an act last year. It's now been passed into law, so it's become law in this last week or so. It is now a framework. Very simply, it is a

Environment committee  Absolutely. The previous situation I used to refer to as being a cut-and-paste duty. In other words, the officials cut out the statements and pasted them into new policy documents, and that was the degree to which sustainable development was actually implemented in practice. It w

Environment committee  It is absolutely critical. As I mentioned, we went through “The Wales We Want” process, which was a 12-month process of engaging communities, businesses, and individuals around Wales in helping to inform and shape the act. Some of our experience has been that we've had too much

Environment committee  It is. Of course, it's going to be embedded within the electoral process as well, the democratic process. Under the new legislation, the future generations commissioner is required to produce, a year before the general election, a report on how we are doing on behalf of future

Environment committee  Absolutely. I think, in terms of accountability, there needs to be accountability, in terms of government accountability, in terms of performance against the broad set of measures that we've set in the legislation. The legislation on its own is not going to be a silver bullet;

Environment committee  From my experience, I think the separate entity is an important statement, because this is also about leadership, enabling culture change, bringing different groups together, and convening groups to look at difficult issues and develop appropriate solutions. It's not simply about

Environment committee  I'm happy to come in. Yes, absolutely. When I heard the analysis and the principles being set out, they absolutely chimed with our experience in terms of what has not worked in Wales up to now and why we put in place this new legislation. I think a lot of those principles are ab

Environment committee  Thank you very much, Chair. I am very grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the work of the committee and to draw on our experience in Wales. We've had a devolved government in the UK since 1999, and sustainable development was established as a core principle of the Gove