Oral Answers to Questions
Perran Moon Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Justin Madders
As the hon. Lady rightly pointed out, the regulation comes into force tomorrow. Actually, it covers things that most businesses are doing already, but we have provided guidance for businesses, including online marketplaces, on how the regulation will apply in Northern Ireland. We will continue to engage with businesses and online marketplaces to ensure that we are supporting them in dealing with this new regulation.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
Jonathan Reynolds
I welcome my hon. Friend’s question, and I welcomed the time we spent together at South Crofty tin mine, which was also one of my favourite visits of the year. This is a hugely exciting area, and the opportunities for his area are particularly exciting. What we need is an open, transparent trading system where these products will have the certainty of access to markets, which will unlock the ability to use those deposits to our and our allies’ mutual interests.
Critical Minerals: Domestic Production
Perran Moon Excerpts(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the domestic production of critical minerals.
It is a pleasure to serve once again under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I am pleased to have secured this debate on a subject that I believe is yet to achieve the public and pollical prominence that it deserves, but that is fundamental to the UK’s energy transition, economic security and industrial growth—especially in areas of high deprivation.
What are critical minerals? Strictly speaking, critical mineral is a label given to materials that are deemed to have economic value and that are vulnerable to supply chain insecurity. The term was first used by the United States Government in the 1940s to describe materials crucial to military technologies. In our modern economy, transitioning to net zero to mitigate the existential threat that we all face from climate change, the new generation of critical minerals such as tin, lithium and tungsten are crucial as the global economy shifts from a fossil fuel intensive to a material-intensive energy system. Last week, the British Geological Survey published its critical minerals list, finding 34 different materials crucial to our economy.
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
My hon. Friend mentions the critical minerals list; it is my view that the list needs to evolve to keep up with the increasing demands that we face, and to account for the production of minerals that we have in this country. In my part of the world we produce polyhalite, a fantastic crop nutrient fertiliser that has huge potential for our food security. Would he agree that the critical minerals list needs to account for minerals such as polyhalite, so that we can ensure our economy is growing into the future?
Perran Moon
It is essential that there is an ongoing dialogue about the critical minerals list. I attended a conference yesterday with the British Geological Survey, at which it explained how it came up with the critical minerals list. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to focus on those minerals that are crucial to the development of our economy. Those minerals are essential for our batteries, cars, wires, consumer devices and defence applications.
To be clear, critical minerals are the cornerstone of the clean energy revolution—the lifeblood of electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels and cutting-edge electronics. In a world where demand for technology grows ever stronger, critical minerals stand as both our greatest challenge and our most brilliant opportunity. Demand is set to massively increase over the next few years and decades, as more consumers buy electric vehicles powered by renewable energy.
I have framed critical minerals as a great challenge as well as an opportunity. That challenge arises because at the moment the UK imports almost all of its critical mineral demand. A number of countries dominate the upstream supply chains, with the top three nations dominating well over three quarters of global output, according to the International Energy Agency. That concentration of production is even higher when it comes to refining operations, where China dominates. By 2030, 85% of lithium will be refined in just three countries. That level of supply chain domination is distinctly undesirable for our decarbonising economy and is much higher than the production concentrations of fossil fuels.
We must diversify our supply chains to achieve greater resource security, including the development of domestic production capabilities. Other large economies such as the US, Canada, Australia, and the EU are working to secure their own critical mineral supply chains, and we must not be left behind in the race to supply security.
Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)
I apologise for being late, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I agree that the market of critical minerals is intensely concentrated in China. Therefore, for security reasons, for economic opportunities and to achieve net zero, it is vital to secure the domestic supply chain. Does he welcome, as I do, the recent memorandum of understanding between Cornish Lithium and LevertonHELM, which produces speciality lithium chemicals, in my constituency? That will help to secure a domestic supply of lithium to support the development of the UK’s battery sector, which in turn will help to maintain the competitiveness of our automotive sector.
Perran Moon
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and wholeheartedly agree with him. As I will mention later, although I am Cornish and focus on Cornwall, there are benefits to be had throughout the United Kingdom.
Relying unreservedly on international supply chains increases our global carbon emissions and means we cannot ensure a higher level of environmental care and social standards in the extraction and processing of these materials. To mitigate that dependency and build secure localised supply chains, including for electric vehicle batteries, investment in domestic extraction and processing is essential. Establishing our domestic industry would also aid our export capabilities.
Our significant lithium reserves could be upstream of a developed battery industry, in turn feeding into the demand for electric vehicles, which is predicted to increase by 30 times up to 2050. The EU is the main export market for UK cars. In 2027, EU rules of origin will come into force, mandating that 65% of the value of a battery must originate in the EU or UK, or there will be significant additional costs. Developing domestic industry will keep our exports compliant with those rules and will keep us protected against any other rules on environmental credentials.
Let us consider the critical mineral resources that the UK possesses. From my own constituency in the heart of Cornwall to Pembrokeshire in Wales, County Durham, Cumbria, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland and the central highlands of Aberdeenshire, the UK is littered with critical mineral potential. Most significantly for the green transition, we find reserves of lithium, tin and tungsten in economically viable quantities.
We should also appreciate that those key areas have been mined historically and are all areas of significant socioeconomic deprivation. If we can create an environment for a domestic industry, there is significant potential for wealth to be held in those communities in the form of good, well-paid jobs. I would like to discuss the particular opportunities in Cornwall, with which I am most familiar.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case, not just for the national security implications of critical minerals, but for the welcome huge economic benefits. Given that, does he welcome the Government’s commitment to bring forward a new strategy for critical minerals security? Does he agree that that would bring benefits, not just for the regions blessed with the minerals in natural supply, but for companies such as Panther Metals in my constituency, which will be able to deliver a big part of the national supply chain in future?
Perran Moon
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and wholeheartedly agree, once again, with the desire for the Government to focus on critical minerals, hopefully developing the critical minerals strategy as a core part of the UK’s overall industrial strategy. I will talk more about that later.
Beneath Cornwall lies a mass of granite rock called the Cornubian batholith—that is harder to say at 9.40 am than one would think—in which lithium-bearing mica was discovered in 1825. In recent years, the extraction and processing of that resource has been developed by two enterprises: Imerys British Lithium and Cornish Lithium, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy). Significantly, the UK lithium demand is projected to be 80,000 tonnes a year by 2030, with geological reserves in Cornwall covering a significant proportion of that demand over the next few decades. I point out that even though demand is projected at 80,000 tonnes a year, we currently have no domestic supply.
Both companies have received significant investment, and just this year Cornish Lithium opened its first processing facility, refining battery-grade lithium hydroxide, locally in Cornwall. These companies constitute not potential on the horizon, but enterprises employing hundreds of people, generating wealth, developing technologies and working with communities and academics.
The potential in Cornwall is underpinned by a rich depth of mining heritage over thousands of years, with an economic peak in the 19th century, when tin was mined on an industrial scale, before the price collapsed and jobs moved to other places around the world. The last tin mine closed at South Crofty, in the heart of my area of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, in 1998. When it did, the following words were graffitied on the closed gate:
“Cornish lads are fishermen,
And Cornish lads are miners too,
But when the fish and tin are gone
What are the Cornish boys to do?”
Today, a firm called Cornish Metals is working to reopen South Crofty tin mine; it is draining it of water as we speak, so that work can start again to meet the severe supply shortages of tin worldwide that the global economy now faces. I have been down South Crofty mine myself and, although it must be said that I am not a geologist, I am convinced that the objectives of Cornish Metals can and must be achieved. Lithium gets a lot of deserved attention because of its use in lithium-ion batteries, but tin is as crucial to modern technologies and electrical infrastructure such as solar panels. Cornwall hosts the third highest-grade tin deposits in the world, and it is the highest grade of tin deposit that is not currently mined.
South Crofty and much of Cornwall more generally represent a unique blend of ancient mining heritage, geological reserves and community support. That comes alongside a cluster of companies and expertise in and around educational institutions such as the world-leading Camborne School of Mines and the University of Exeter, based in Penryn, which has more top 100 climate scientists than any other university in the world.
The UK’s burgeoning critical minerals industry could be a game changer, helping to relieve pressures on communities such as mine and generating jobs and wealth. With those communities in mind, it is fundamental that domestic production works for local people and the natural environment, so that we do unleash the Cornish Celtic tiger.
As an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on critical minerals, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law), I am in close contact with the industry. We attended the Critical Minerals Association conference yesterday and will attend another industry conference on the future of mining later this week. Industry leaders have made it very clear to me that there is a serious gap in the midstream supply chain for batteries, including magnet development. Much focus is on the upstream, but those gaps must be plugged as well.
Industry is crying out for domestic production guaranteed by the Government, whether as a set tonnage or as a percentage of demand on a sliding scale. That would reassure mining finance, which is relatively risk-averse. In that vein, I ask the Government to consider implementing de-risking financial instruments such as price floors, as well as considering mineral-extraction projects as part of the enterprise investment scheme, which provides tax reliefs for investors supporting small and growing enterprises. The industry suffers from a long development timescale and high up-front costs, both of which need to be considered as the Government tackle this country’s industrial and planning issues.
Giving more support to this industry will increase its credibility as a possible career path in the education system. Camborne School of Mines, the UK’s only dedicated mining college, and perhaps the world’s most famous, offers sector-specific undergraduate courses, but we require greater focus on STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—at GCSE and A-level, alongside apprenticeships. To conclude—I am sure hon. Members will be relieved to hear that—
Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)
Australia is the world’s largest lithium producer, but nearly all its lithium is exported to China for battery production there, and there is very little domestic battery production. Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK, if it follows the path that he wants it to, should not fall into the same trap? We need to have the upstream demand as well as the mining production.
Perran Moon
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I mentioned, the risk is that we have a small number of dominant players from areas of the world that are potentially geopolitically sensitive for the UK and the west. It is crucial that we focus on our own domestic critical mineral production, so that we have that security going forward. I entirely agree.
To conclude, critical minerals are the elephant in the room when it comes to energy transition. We must capitalise on UK domestic potential. How we extract the materials, how we capture supply chains and how we develop technologies to recycle critical minerals will only become more important. I have focused on the cluster of businesses in Cornwall, but Northern Lithium, Green Lithium and Weardale Lithium in the north of England represent other acorns of industrial potential that we must support. Northern Lithium is targeting production of over 10,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium from brines, having secured mineral rights over 60,000 acres. Only last week, Watercycle Technologies from the University of Manchester developed new technology for producing battery-grade lithium from UK source brines.
We have to acknowledge the scale of the challenge at hand in order to generate a rising tide that will lift the whole industry. Critical minerals must form a core part of the Government’s industrial strategy, alongside investment in housing in deprived communities, infra- structure around and within key sites such as Falmouth port, and commercial infrastructure such as rail for freight transport and a tin smelter at South Crofty. Currently, tin produced in the UK would have to be shipped to east Asia to be smelted and then shipped back, creating extensive carbon emissions through shipping and offshoring the jobs and infrastructure in the supply chain that we need domestically.
With all that in mind, I ask the Minister: what is the state of the Government’s ongoing dialogue with the industry? Do the Government recognise the current geopolitical risks of a world shortfall in the supply of tin, and will the white heat of the UK’s critical mineral industry form a key part of the Government’s strategy? If we overcome these challenges, we will deliver the UK’s critical mineral security, create thousands of jobs in deprived communities and accelerate our drive towards a fossil fuel-free future.
Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that they need to stand if they wish to speak during the debate.
Perran Moon
Thank you again, Mrs Harris, for chairing the debate. I thank all hon. Members who have participated. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) made excellent points about the critical minerals list. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) highlighted the importance of critical minerals for green economic transition. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) unsurprisingly banged the drum for lithium in the clay country, but also importantly highlighted the supply chain insecurity that forms the basis of the debate.
The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) commented on working with local conservationists. Further to the example he gave, I draw his attention to the Red River in my constituency, where water being removed from South Crofty mine is being cleaned, with the alkaline content altered slightly, and then pumped back into the river to improve the quality of the water and the ecology. I also draw his attention to modern smelting practices, which are completely transformed and do not have the same levels of environmental risk as they did back in their heyday.
It is unrealistic to expect domestic resources to meet all the UK’s demand for critical minerals. I do not seek to suggest that we can. What I advocate, and will continue to work towards, is the maximisation of what we have. We must build industry to improve the security of the supply chain, underpin our energy transition in a responsible and environmentally-friendly way, improve our export position, and provide good, well-paid, long-term jobs for local communities across some of the most deprived areas of the UK. We cannot afford to wait. If we do, the opportunity will pass us by. Supporting this industry today will ensure that it becomes a beacon of success for the UK economy. On the other hand, failure to support the industry now exposes us to a multitude of risks.
Unquestionably, critical minerals are central to the Government’s overall economic ambitions, and I am delighted to support those ambitions in any way I can. I thank the shadow Minister for his exhibition of whataboutery in introducing pylons and the OZEV mandate into the debate. I think this debate is a little bit more important than whataboutery. I simply ask him whether he admits that the UK is over-reliant on and vulnerable to foreign supply. What on earth have the previous Government been doing for the last 14 years?
I thank the Minister for her commitment to critical mineral production, and for the time she has given to allow me and others to explain the opportunities that exist in our communities. I am delighted that a critical mineral steering group has been established, and I conclude by thanking again all Members who have participated in the debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the domestic production of critical minerals.
Budget Resolutions
Perran Moon Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
This is a truly landmark Budget, not only for its glass ceiling smashing—I sincerely hope that the girls and young women in my constituency will be inspired to see the first female Chancellor for England after 800 years—but because it provides the basis for a clean break from the race to the bottom, trickle-down economic drivel, riddled with vested interests, to which the Conservatives have subjected the country for the past 14 years, with austerity, recession, dodgy personal protective equipment contracts and economic collapse. The public should never forgive and never forget what the Conservatives have done to our country.
This Budget marks an end to using public finances and the British people as guinea pigs in an economic experiment that sent interest rates and mortgage rates soaring and living standards plummeting and saw families gripped in the vice-like clutch of the Conservatives’ cost of living crisis. When I listened to the response of the former Leader of the Opposition—it is hard to keep up—it was crystal clear to me that the born-to-rule Conservatives simply have not understood that they are not ruling any more. I only wanted to hear one word from the former Leader of the Opposition: sorry. That word never came.
As someone with over 30 years of private sector experience, I am getting a bit bored of the trope that no one on this side of the House has any private sector experience—
Perran Moon
The right hon. Gentleman asks about the Government Front Bench. I appreciate that a large proportion of Conservative MPs now serve on the Front Bench; that begs a question about the quality of the people left behind.
On the one hand the Budget places desperately needed money in the hands of the lowest-paid workers, where it will be spent locally, and on the other hand it heralds a new era of much-needed infrastructure investment—the kind that will stimulate growth in the economy and thousands of new jobs across the country, based on a coherent industrial strategy. It sets us on a course to rebuild depleted public services and lays the foundations for the pillars of a decade of economic and social renewal.
The Budget recognises the importance of the shared prosperity fund, which the Conservatives wanted to scrap to pay for their hare-brained national service plan —a decision that would have been devastating for the people of Cornwall, as well as for many other communities around the UK. The Budget places British workers at its heart—those same British workers who rejected the failed economic experiments of the Conservatives, along with the chaos, infighting and fiscal incompetence. They voted decisively for stability and security—a sea change from the previous 14 years. They voted for change; this Budget delivers it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Perran Moon Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
I have more than 30 years of business experience, so the Conservative party’s claims that there is no business experience on the Government Benches carries about as much weight as their industrial strategy. Can the Minister confirm that prior to the election there were extensive consultations with business experts, which I bet the Conservative party wished they had done over the past 14 years.