9. Competition Assessment
9.1. This RIA does not include a Competition Assessment. This is because the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill contains a broad framework which will enable the Scottish Government to tackle climate change mitigation. The Bill will include only a few specific policies with the bulk of these expected to be developed further as the Bill passes through the Scottish Parliament. It is future policies introduced at a later date which will have the largest impact on specific sectors and types of businesses. These policies would again be subject to the RIA process.
9.2. The costs of climate change mitigation policies are likely to be unevenly distributed across sectors and households. 27 These distributional impacts will be affected by the extent to which Scotland acts unilaterally and by the particular policy mechanisms used in each sector. Energy intensive sectors which are highly exposed to international competition are likely to experience the most adverse impacts on output and employment. This is also likely to be the case if UK policies are not well aligned with Scottish policies, as Scotland has a relatively open economy compared to the rest of the UK. This would likely result in some structural adjustments in the economy, with output and employment re-allocated from energy intensive to non-energy intensive sectors. 28 The effect of mitigation policies on less energy intensive areas of the economy is likely to be limited.
9.3. The Government consulted early with a variety of business and industry umbrella groups prior to the launch of the formal public consultation.