The UK government must learn from Wales and bring about a politics that looks to the future

A decade ago, the Welsh government did something genuinely revolutionary. By signing into law the Well-being of Future Generations Act, it required the government and all public bodies to improve long-term social, economic, cultural and environmental wellbeing, and established a Future Generations commissioner to hold them accountable.

In the 10 years since, Wales has seen some concrete policy results, including reductions in household emissions and increased participation in volunteering and sports, alongside a more engaged public dialogue about the future. And the culture of policymaking in Wales has undoubtedly changed for the better.

Other countries have also taken action to ensure that they think and act in the long term. Singapore’s Centre for Strategic Futures and New Zealand’s requirement for long-term insight briefings show that embedding foresight and intergenerational fairness into government is both possible and beneficial.

In the UK as whole, we’re somewhat behind the curve. The Labour government’s focus on five national missions is a step in the right direction, and there are signs that ministers are trying to grabble with issues that will affect us for decades to come, not least on net zero. But politics in the UK is still largely focused on the five-year time horizon of the electoral cycle. Worse still, the government seems trapped in a doom loop of reacting to the latest crisis emerging from the US or elsewhere, and has neither the political courage nor the bandwidth to be more proactive and strategic.

Why does this matter? Surely it is both necessary and correct to be agile and opportunistic, reacting to a fast-moving and unpredictable news agenda, both globally and on the home front?

The problem with this approach is that doesn’t incentivise our political leaders to take the difficult decisions now that are necessary to avoid huge costs and risks in the future, and to build a better future for everyone. One example of this short-termism was when successive UK governments used the Private Finance Initiative to save money by shifting the bill for public infrastructure projects ‘off-balance-sheet’, to be repaid many times over by future governments.

In particular, short-termism is a barrier to tackling inequalities and building a fairer society, as we explore in our Mission to the Future report, published today. But it is also bad news for the government’s broader set of policy priorities.

We believe that the government is overestimating the costs of focusing on the long term, and underestimating the costs of continuing to prioritise short-term issues. Short-termism makes it harder for the government to achieve its opportunity mission, which relies on tackling the out-of-school barriers to opportunity such as poverty and poor housing. This then leads to wasted talent and potential, damaging our economy and undermining the government’s growth mission. And a narrow focus on immediate priorities prevents politicians from making the difficult decisions needed to improve living standards. This not only costs the government votes (as we saw last week in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election) but also weakens public faith in politics, and so damages our democracy.

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The tragedy is that the benefits of long-termism are not hypothetical. Where governments have invested for the future, the returns have been transformative. The early 2000s saw real progress in expanding opportunity, only for it to be undone by austerity. The Sure Start programme delivered measurable improvements in educational outcomes, especially for disadvantaged children, and could have saved the government millions in youth justice and social care costs if it had been retained. Delays in investing in renewable energy and critical infrastructure have left the UK lagging behind its international peers, with higher energy bills and missed opportunities for green growth. Cuts to public health and social care, combined with a failure to prepare for pandemics, have left the NHS overwhelmed and have widened health inequalities. The Covid pandemic exposed the folly of prioritising short-term cost-cutting over long-term resilience.

Short-term thinking in politics creates a negative feedback loop. It raises levels of inequality, which increases societal vulnerability to shocks, which exacerbates the severity of immediate crises, which increases the pressure for quick fixes, which undermines the prospects for thinking and acting in the long term.

What can we do to extricate ourselves from this vicious cycle? We have identified three barriers to effective long-term thinking in government. First, the centre of government lacks the leadership, skills, and capacity for long-term policymaking, and the dominance of ‘Treasury brain’ thinking, which prioritises immediate cost savings over future benefits, makes it hard to invest in long-term projects. Second, the public is not engaged in long-term policy design. And finally, psychological barriers make it difficult for people, politicians and the rest of us alike, to attach enough importance to the interests of future generations.

To overcome these barriers, we have identified two immediate and practical solutions that would start to turn the tide. First, we recommend the appointment of a UK-wide Future Generations commissioner who is empowered to advise government, assess the long-term impacts of policies, and champion intergenerational fairness. Second, we suggest that the government launches a national dialogue on the future, engaging citizens in shaping the society they want to leave behind. These steps, modelled on successful international examples, would improve policy outcomes while helping to rebuild public trust in politics and to foster a sense of shared purpose.

The challenges facing the UK, from climate change to technological disruption and rising inequality, demand nothing less than a fundamental shift in how we govern. Short-termism is not just a political weakness; it is a threat to our collective future. By embedding long-term thinking and intergenerational fairness into the fabric of our political system, we can create a society that is fairer, healthier and more resilient.

Will Snell is the chief executive of the Fairness Foundation.

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