Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen domestic supply chains for critical minerals.

The UK Critical Minerals Strategy sets out the Governments’ approach to securing domestic critical minerals supply by harnessing the UK’s competitive advantage in midstream processing and recycling, leveraging the UK’s distinct pockets of mineral wealth, and working with international partners to build more resilient UK and global supply networks.

We are delivering on the strategy’s objective to optimise domestic production through a range of measures including streamlined planning and permitting, competitive energy costs and a range of financial support such as £50 million for critical mineral projects in the UK to scale domestic capability, unlock investment, and drive economic growth.