Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, what steps his Department is taking to help deliver the strategy to increase domestic extraction and production of critical minerals.

The Government will publish a UK Critical Minerals Strategy in 2022. This will include steps to create an enabling environment for the domestic extraction, processing and recycling of critical minerals. It can also support the production of key components, like batteries.

Funding, such as the Automotive Transformation Fund, National Security Strategic Investment Fund, UK Infrastructure Bank, UK Export Finance, and the National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research programme, can support investments at various points along the critical minerals value chain in specific sectors, like the automotive industry. For example, Cornish Lithium has received support via the Getting Building Fund (2020) and Automotive Transformation Fund (2021). British Lithium has received grant funding from Innovate UK (2020) and the Sustainable Innovation Fund (2021).