According to the Climate Change (Just Transition Commission) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2026, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs created a statutory Just Transition Commission on 28 April 2026. Regulation 1 brings the instrument into operation on 29 April 2026, the day after it was made, after the draft had been laid before the Assembly. The regulations were made under section 37 of the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. The instrument also records that the Department sought advice from the Committee on Climate Change before laying the draft and took that advice into account, placing the new body directly within the statutory framework of the 2022 Act.
Regulation 3 establishes the Commission, while regulation 4 defines what it may do. Its principal role is to review and report on the implementation of the Act's just transition elements in sectoral plans made under sections 13 to 21, climate action plans published under section 29 or section 51, and any scheme created under section 31. That is a narrower and more precise remit than a general climate watchdog. The regulations tie the Commission to specified provisions of the 2022 Act, namely section 13(4), section 30(2)(a), (3) and (6), section 31, and section 32(2)(e), so its work is directed at how just transition duties are being carried through in formal plans and schemes.
The instrument gives the Commission both an advisory and an information-gathering role. Under regulation 5, where a Northern Ireland department asks for advice, the Commission must, so far as practicable, meet the timetable set by that department after consultation with the Commission. Regulation 6 allows the Commission to request information from any statutory public body where that information is needed for its functions, with a timetable agreed after consultation. Regulation 7 adds the supporting powers needed to carry out its work and permits authorised persons to act on the Commission's behalf with Departmental approval.
Accountability runs through the reporting rules. Regulation 8 requires the Commission to prepare a report on the performance of its functions after each financial year and to lay that report before the Assembly as soon as practicable. Any review report produced under regulation 4 must also be laid before the Assembly, and the same applies to any other report the Commission chooses to publish. That arrangement means the Commission's findings are designed to move into the public and parliamentary record rather than remain internal advice.
The Schedule sets a broad membership model. The Department may appoint a chairperson and up to 19 other members, and the membership must include representatives from academia, civic society, youth groups, the rural sector, trade unions, green finance, energy, transport, the built environment and fisheries. The regulations also require two representatives of environmental groups and three representatives of the agricultural sector. In practical terms, that composition is designed to bring together sectors likely to face material change as climate policy is implemented, rather than limiting the Commission to departmental or technical specialists alone.
The same Schedule allows the Commission, with Departmental approval, to establish committees for advice and assistance. Those committees may include external members, but at least one committee member must already sit on the Commission, which keeps a formal link between committee work and the main body. The Commission may regulate its own procedure, including voting rights, although its quorum must be settled at a meeting attended by the chairperson and at least two thirds of the other members. It may invite non-members to attend meetings, and committees may do the same, but those invitations do not carry voting rights.
Terms of office, payment and standards of conduct are also written into the legislation. Members serve under their terms of appointment and may resign in writing to the Department. The Department may remove a member on stated grounds including criminal conviction, insolvency, incapacity, unfitness or three months of unexplained non-attendance, and it may pay remuneration and allowances to members, external committee members and certain invited attendees. The Commission must keep a register of interests, publish it or make it available on request, and record and manage actual or potential conflicts so that decision-making is not, and does not appear to be, compromised. It must also maintain accounting, reporting and record-keeping arrangements, and the Schedule states that vacancies or defects in appointment do not invalidate decisions. The immediate effect is that Northern Ireland now has a standing statutory body able to test whether just transition commitments in climate plans are being matched by evidence, representation and regular Assembly scrutiny.