The failures are plain to see. Rivers are treated as drains. Homes are left exposed to floods and heat. Public services are forced to pay tomorrow for damage that should have been prevented today. Families face higher bills, weaker services and a natural world in retreat, while Westminster still asks its narrowest question. Has GDP gone up?

GDP is not the enemy. It measures economic activity, and that still has value. The mistake is treating this narrow measure as the test of national success. A business would not sell its factory roof to flatter this year’s accounts while exposing its machinery to the rain. Yet that is what politics does when it runs down the living foundations of our prosperity and calls the transaction growth.

It is time to put GDP back in its place. Let it count activity but not define purpose. Our economy needs a compass, not just a speedometer. It must ask whether growth is widening freedom, strengthening communities, renewing the natural systems on which life depends and increasing the wealth we hold in common.

This is the question for Liberal Democrats. Are we brave enough to tell a different story of sustainability and hope? The liberalism Britain needs now is not thin individualism, nor a faith that remote markets or centralised ministries will save us. It is freedom rooted in dignity, community, stewardship and democratic power. Clean water, secure homes, healthy people, thriving nature, decent work, trusted services and power in people’s own communities are the footings on which liberty stands.

There is no liberal future on a polluted, depleting island. When rivers are unsafe, landscapes are stripped, neighbourhoods are vulnerable and services are hollowed out, people do not become freer. They become more exposed. That is not liberty. It is abandonment dressed up as choice.

Nor are we short of tools and ideas. Alternative economic frameworks, natural capital accounting, social value rules, climate budgets, public health evidence, long-term appraisal and community participation all exist. The problem is that they sit in separate boxes. They appear in speeches, strategies and guidance, then fade when budgets tighten and old habits return. The result is a sustainability mirage. We see the promise, embrace the narrative, but sit tight as the system carries on as before.

We do not have the luxury of starting from scratch. Climate breakdown and nature loss are moving too quickly for fantasies of collapse or perfect reinvention. The task is to change the incentives, duties and disciplines of the institutions we have, while opening the door to deeper reform. The system needs a democratic nudge strong enough to make long-term stewardship unavoidable and to seed a bigger national debate.

That is why Liberal Democrats should champion a UK Future Generations Wellbeing Act. Not as a slogan and not as a bureaucratic luxury, but as liberalism made practical. Before major spending, planning, procurement or infrastructure decisions are made, public bodies should have to show whether they maintain, improve or deplete the assets on which wellbeing depends.

This would not mean rule by Whitehall. Quite the opposite. A liberal Wellbeing Act should disperse power while adding a duty of care. Local councils, communities, citizens’ assemblies and environmental groups should have the information and standing to challenge decisions that strip value from their place. Change should not be done to people from a distance. It must be built with them, where they live, through choices they can shape.

That is where democratic legitimacy lives. People will back difficult change when they can see the benefits, understand the trade-offs and feel that the future is not being decided over their heads. Restored peatlands mean lower flood risk and cleaner water. Warmer homes mean lower bills and better health. Public benefit utilities mean essential services run for long-term value, not extraction. Greener streets and richer habitats mean healthier places to live, work and raise families.

Our own preamble already points the way. We have the vision. Liberal Democrats exist to build a fair, free and open society. We seek to balance liberty, equality and community. We believe each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet. We want a strong and sustainable economy that enables people to thrive in their communities, with progress assessed by wellbeing. A Wellbeing Act is not a bolt-on to that tradition. It is the engine that lets those values live in an age of climate breakdown, nature loss and broken trust.

Liberalism began as a challenge to concentrated power. In this century, that power includes the ability to pollute a river, exhaust a landscape, weaken a community and leave the bill to children who had no voice in the decision. Our answer must be freedom with responsibility, markets with purpose, local power with national duty, and prosperity measured by the strength of what we pass on.

This is our moment to tell a different story of hope. Not a story of sacrifice or decline, but of renewal. Let Liberal Democrats put 20th-century economic habit back where it belongs, rebuild nature, revitalise democracy and hardwire stewardship into the state. Let us offer Britain a liberalism with roots, courage and hope, so the country we hand on is richer in life, trust and possibility than the one we inherited.

Who’s in?

* Steve Mason is an environmental campaign leader, policy specialist, and a North Yorkshire Liberal Democrat councillor and Vice Chair of Green Lib Dems. He led the national coalition that helped secure the UK fracking moratorium and led the fracking companies transition away from fossil fuels into Geothermal. His recent academic work spans planning, protected landscapes, nature recovery, citizen science, community engagement, and sustainability studies.