Deep Seabed Mining

Debate between Lord Mott and Lord Teverson

Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mott (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. I am very happy to offer him my full support on this issue. I will clearly have to take that back to the department to find what the position is, but it certainly makes perfect sense to me. I completely support him in the incredibly important work that he is doing.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his first Oral Questions. In the Government’s strategy on critical minerals, which are key for global supply chains and our own supply chains, they stressed the circular economy—recycling and getting critical minerals from resources that we already have. Will he confirm that that is a priority well before we do deep sea mining? One way of doing that is to make sure that we have standardisation on things such as batteries, so that they can be disassembled and their materials can be used again efficiently and quickly.

[Lord Mott (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his opening comments. The simple answer is that we need to continue to investigate all possibilities. The point that he has made is incredibly important and we need to continue that investigation. Regarding deep sea mining, it is important that we continue to develop a future society based on renewable energy and technology. It will be critical to find sources of reliable, clean and ethically sourced mineral resources, which is why we will continue to work very closely with the ISA. To his very important point, we will certainly make sure that we are using all the resources that we have and that we are not damaging the planet.