Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what research they are undertaking on the long-term effects of deep-sea mining.

In 2022 the UK government commissioned an independent deep sea mining evidence review conducted by the British Geological Survey, National Oceanography Centre and Heriot Watt University and it was published in October 2022.

The government, through UK Research and Innovation and National Environment Research Council, (UKRI-NERC) is also funding the 5-year SMARTEX (Seabed Mining and Resilience to Experimental Impact) project which aims to build a better understanding of the ecosystem in the Pacific abyss and add to the scientific evidence base for informed decision-making by understanding the long-term environmental impacts of mining and whether this will have serious consequences for the ecosystem.