Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment she has made of the impact on levels of land based extraction of critical minerals of emerging green industries.
Within the Critical Minerals Strategy, we are seeking to maximise what the UK can produce domestically, where viable for businesses and where it works for communities and our natural environment. As part of this effort, we commissioned an assessment of the UK’s geological potential for critical mineral extraction. In April this year, the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre published its report on “Potential for Critical Raw Material Prospectivity in the UK”, which highlighted the UK’s potential to produce a variety of critical minerals, including lithium – a key ingredient of electric vehicles. It is a preliminary assessment, and the Government is working with the British Geological Survey to understand next steps.