E: Cabinet Secretary for Transport
E: Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy
08 August 2025
Dear Ms Hyslop and Ms Martin,
Advice on the Draft Just Transition Plan for Transport in Scotland
We are writing to you in the context of the public consultation on the Draft Just Transition Plan for Transport in Scotland. We hope this letter and its annexes will be considered alongside the responses to this consultation, in line with the requirement within our remit “to provide scrutiny and advice on the ongoing development of Scottish Government-led just transition plans” for core economic sectors.
The following advice is intended to support work to revise the draft plan for transport as well as relevant aspects of the Climate Change Plan currently in development. We look forward to engaging constructively on the further development of these plans.
We welcome the draft as a positive step forward in the development of Scotland’s Just Transition Planning Framework. The draft plan highlights the value that can be added by applying just transition principles to mitigation policies so as to achieve emissions reductions as fairly as possible and build public understanding and social consensus around necessary changes.
Transport is an especially challenging, complex and fragmented sector, and there are precious few viable “win-win” solutions in this area. Developing an effective just transition approach will be critical in confronting and analysing key strategic challenges in terms of social and economic impacts at a relatively early stage to support a sophisticated strategy for achieving the long-term delivery of emissions reductions.
A strength of the draft plan is that it clearly establishes carbon inequality as a primary problem for the sector, while putting forward a positive vision for the future of Scotland’s transport system. It shows clearly how extensive engagement work has been carried out and helped to inform the Scottish Government’s approach, and it recognises that effective policy will be flexible to place-based needs, including rural areas and islands. This is an approach that should enable more rapid and equitable delivery than a one-size-fits-all model which would struggle to reconcile the overall goal of emissions reductions and a more equitable system with the specific needs of rural and island communities.
Furthermore, the plan does well to recognise the role the transition in transport must play in our adaptation and resilience to climate change right across Scotland, as well as the impact of the changing climate on transport workers specifically. The plan provides a useful starting point for the detailed planning on future skills for the sector that lies ahead.
The Commission published a briefing in 2023 titled “Can We Reduce Car Use Fairly?” Subsequently we have had a number of constructive meetings with officials working towards the development of the draft just transition plan for transport, as well as discussing key transport issues from a just transition perspective with the team involved in developing the new draft Climate Change Plan expected later this year. Transport has been a consistent issue raised in our engagement with communities across the country including in Grangemouth, Shetland, the North East, Dumfries and Galloway and the Western Isles. The Commission also published a statement in June regarding the proposed closure of Alexander Dennis Ltd. sites at Falkirk and Larbert, and this can be found in Annex C.
To support consideration of our advice (Annex A) and consistent with previous scrutiny work undertaken on draft just transition plans for core economic sectors, the Commission convened a series of roundtable discussions themed around (i) Economy, (ii) Equity and (iii) Environment. Please find high-level read-outs of these sessions appended under Annex B.
We look forward to providing further scrutiny and advice to support policy development in this area, and would welcome any opportunity to discuss how we can best work towards a just transition for Scotland’s transport sector.
Sincerely,
Professor Dave Reay and Satwat Rehman
Co-Chairs of the Just Transition Commission