ECR Blog: ‘Devolved Jurisdictions as spaces for aspirational legislation’ by Dr Caer Smyth and Genevieve Gunn

Dr Caer Smyth is interdisciplinary legal researcher at Cardiff University (School of Law and Politics) who employs socio-legal research methodologies to explore problems of environmental law and procedural environmental justice. Genevieve Gunn is a PhD student at the School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University. In this blog, they reflect on their experience of delivering a workshop via the Learned Society of Wales Research Workshop Grants Scheme.

In the twenty-seven years since the Acts of Devolution, what legal and policy cultures have emerged that might be unique to the devolved administrations? Can we see greater space and appetite for innovative legislation and policy at the devolved governance level? The workshop, ‘Arbrofi: Devolved jurisdictions as spaces for aspirational legislation’, held in Cardiff on 18 June, explored these questions. While Wales has had a slower start to the devolution process than the other devolved nations, one could argue that it has produced the most ambitious piece of legislation to come out of a devolved administration, the Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015 (WFGA). The workshop considered WFGA’s role as a catalyst for innovative, ‘future generations’ thinking in devolved governance.

Marie Brosseau-Navarro, Deputy Commissioner and Director for Health with the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner, opened the workshop with a comprehensive account of the WFGA and the impact it has had in Wales in its first ten years. ‘Pioneering and forward-thinking’ in its design, WGFA works with public bodies and local communities to improve the social, environmental, economic and cultural well-being of current and future generations. Marie described the global reach of the Act, with the Act inspiring legislators from Ireland to the United Arab Emirates. While WFGA does not apply to third sector and private organisations, many Welsh companies have voluntarily implemented the Act’s policies. This speaks to the Act’s ‘soft’ power and its influential role in the Welsh policy landscape.

The first panel session, ‘Constraints on innovation in devolved administrations’, started with Simon Jones (PhD candidate Cardiff LAWPL), who spoke about ‘Minimum Unit Pricing’ (MUP) legislation enacted in Wales and Scotland. Fundamentally, Simon noted that the rights-based approach underpinning MUP was inconsistent, in particular in Scotland. As evidence of this inconsistency, Simon highlighted that while MUP aspires to reduce peoples’ spending on alcohol, it has not been complemented with a wider campaign addressing the needs of dependent drinkers. David Westlake (CASCADE) followed with a presentation on the Welsh Basic Income Pilot for Care Leavers. David and Sally Holland are leading the evaluation of this innovative scheme. David identified some of the significant structural constraints imposed by the limits of Welsh devolution; for example, welfare and taxation falling for the most part outside of devolved competence made elements of the scheme very challenging. He also highlighted the importance of sustained political commitment to the pilot and the desire to move past bureaucratic hurdles, suggesting that these are some of the opportunities provided by working in a smaller, devolved administration.

In the second panel session, ‘Communities as the engines of innovation’, we heard from Victoria Jenkins (Swansea University), who examined the well-being goal, ‘A Wales of Cohesive Communities’ and questioned whether local community governance facilitated by the Act worked on behalf of communities, or with communities. Jenkins cited the imposition of boundaries on local communities in the Swansea Valley area as a potential barrier to achieving this well-being goal, as the understandings of people and place informing the local well-being plans were not co-produced with the communities themselves. The final speaker of the day was John Harrington (Cardiff University, and a Fellow of LSW), who suggested a way of understanding the ethics of health law in Wales, drawing on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. John set out the history of health law in Wales, in particular the Medical Aid Societies in the South Wales valleys, and highlighted how, using MacIntyre’s historical and contextual approach to the grounding of ethics, he hopes to draw on these historical materials to develop an ethics of health care specific to Wales.

In the days following the workshop, several participants highlighted how valuable it was to spend time focusing on the distinct features of devolved governance and exploring the opportunities created by the Well-being of Future Generations Act. The workshop “sparked new thoughts and ideas” and helped researchers in the field connect with one another. This enjoyable day was made possible by the generous support of the Learned Society of Wales. It is hoped that Abrofi’s success can be repeated—planning for next year’s workshop is already underway!