Britain’s Battery Future Report

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

We have set out in our Clean Power 2030 Action Plan a road to energy security, and to the clean power the country needs, to provide clean energy for the future as well as securing our energy independence. We have seen the importance of that in recent months. We have also taken steps to cut energy costs for industry, particularly in areas of the industrial strategy that are especially energy-intensive.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, what steps are the Government taking to secure a domestic supply chain for battery materials, to reduce our dependency on China?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The new critical minerals strategy sets out the ambition to meet 10% of the UK’s demand from domestic production and 20% from recycling, and no more than 60% of any critical mineral from a single country. For battery supply specifically, the ambition is to produce at least 50,000 tonnes of lithium in the UK in the next decade. The most recent round of battery innovation programme collective R&D grants have refunded recycling projects to fulfil these goals.