Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of mandating a 50,000 tons per annum production target for domestic lithium.

A secure supply of critical minerals is vital for the UK's economic growth and security, industrial strategy ambitions, and clean energy transition.

Domestic production of lithium will be increasingly important as demand for resilient and responsible sources of critical minerals grows. The St Austell and Newquay constituency is home to several promising lithium projects like Imerys-British Lithium and Cornish Lithium, which recently celebrated opening the UK's first lithium hydroxide demonstration plant this month.

Government is considering policy options to secure our critical mineral supply chains and will be engaging closely with industry to realise our potential for producing critical minerals domestically.