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 improve investment into UK critical mineral processing capacity.

The UK Critical Minerals Strategy outlines the Government’s approach to securing supply by harnessing the UK’s competitive advantage in midstream processing and recycling of critical minerals and supporting the scaling of UK-based capabilities. It sets out how we are supporting UK critical mineral processing capacity through a range of measures including streamlined permitting, competitive energy costs and targeted financial support.

We are investing £50 million for critical mineral projects to expand research, innovation and commercialisation, supporting a UK Magnet Hub for rare earth magnet manufacturing and the Critical Minerals Accelerator to scale up and de-risk domestic projects.