Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2026 [Draft]
I speak as a member of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. I thank the clerks for their assistance with our report and thank everyone who responded to our call for views.
The bill would create a new duty requiring public bodies
“to have due regard for the need to promote wellbeing and sustainable development”
in the exercise of their functions.
The committee received a substantial amount of evidence in response to our call for views, with those who were supportive of the bill highlighting a number of reasons for strengthening the integration of sustainable development and wellbeing into public policy. Those included the climate and biodiversity crises, rapid societal and industrial change and the increased use of artificial intelligence. On the other hand, those who were not supportive indicated that those objectives could be delivered through existing policy and legislation. It is my view, and that of the majority of the committee, that the latter position is correct. Although the committee supports the policy intention of the bill, the majority concluded that it should not proceed to stage 2, for reasons that I will now set out.
The central concern that was raised throughout our consideration was the potential for the bill to duplicate existing public sector duties, such as in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 and the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. That concern was highlighted by many, including Aberdeenshire Council, which described much of what is outlined in the bill as a potential duplication of work. Historic Environment Scotland raised a similar concern about overlaps and similarities between the bill and other legislation and policy initiatives. That was pointed out by the minister, who confirmed that public bodies already have wellbeing and sustainable development reporting duties through the national performance framework and their accountable officers.
On part 2 of the bill, regarding the future generations commissioner for Scotland, although the majority of the respondents to the committee’s call for views indicated support for the establishment of a commissioner, concerns were raised that that could result in an overlap between the duties and responsibilities of other commissioners and oversight bodies. That point was highlighted by Scottish Environment LINK, which stated that that could be a key challenge, and by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, which did not support the establishment of a commissioner due to the risk of overlap with its office and that of the Scottish Human Rights Commission.
Although I agree that improving public policy coherence and embedding long-term policy making across the public sector is essential, it is vital that that is done in such a way that it does not burden public bodies with overlapping duties. Indeed, it does not seem appropriate, given the Scottish Government’s on-going review of the national performance framework, which will play a significant role in strengthening accountability and embedding wellbeing and sustainable development in all that we do. It would therefore seem more sensible to focus on and complete the NPF reform process, rather than to create new legislation at this time.
To conclude, although the committee supports the policy objective of the bill to embed sustainable development and wellbeing as primary considerations in public policy making, the majority of the committee concluded that the bill should not proceed at this time to stage 2, due to the potential for overlap, duplication and confusion.