Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2026 [Draft]
It is my pleasure to open the debate on behalf of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. I thank Sarah Boyack for introducing the bill. I also thank all those who provided evidence, as well as my fellow committee members for their thoughtful consideration of the provisions in the bill. I thank the minister, too, for providing a response to our report ahead of the debate. A majority of the committee concluded that the bill should not proceed to stage 2, while a minority felt that there is a strong argument for the bill to proceed.
There are three key components to the bill’s policy objectives: to establish statutory definitions of the terms “sustainable development” and “wellbeing”; to impose a statutory duty on public bodies to consider wellbeing and sustainable development in the exercise of their functions; and to create the office of the future generations commissioner for Scotland. Sarah Boyack told us that all three are necessary to achieve the bill’s policy objectives.
We heard convincing arguments about the positive role that statutory duties could play in assisting public bodies to meet sustainable development and wellbeing objectives. However, a key concern was the potential for the new duty to duplicate rather than complement existing public sector duties—in particular, the duty to have regard to the national outcomes in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. We asked the Scottish Government to be open to amending legislation by exploring what could be achieved by strengthening the duties in the 2015 act. The minister indicated in his response that the focus at the moment is on improving implementation of the duty. However, the Scottish Government is open to considering legislative improvements or changes in future. That is very much welcome.
The bill would establish a future generations commissioner for Scotland. The intention is for the commissioner to champion the issues underpinning the bill, ensure its successful implementation and build policy coherence for sustainable development throughout Scotland’s public sector. The committee does not disagree with the need for effective oversight to ensure implementation of the bill’s provisions. However, issues were raised in evidence about the overlap of commissioner’s remit with the remits of existing commissioners and oversight bodies. Compared to other options, the cost of that approach and that of establishing a commissioner do not meet the criteria agreed by Parliament.