Deep Seabed Mining

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness is quite right: the US is not part of the UNCLOS treaty; a number of other states are also not part of it. Of course we continue to engage with all our friends and partners internationally to encourage them to take part in these initiatives.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that, of the 12 countries on the list of countries that have exploration licences, a large number are clearly very small? They are reportedly relying on major international contractors to do all the work for them, including representing them on the International Seabed Authority. Does he therefore agree that there is a need for more independent technical expertise before this goes any further?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We work very closely with the companies based in the UK, including those to which we have issued exploration licences and those conducting R&D. That has produced a tremendous amount of research—something like 70 scientific papers so far—which of course we will seek to draw from. But we need to be responsible. The UK deciding not to take part in this and issuing a moratorium does not of course prevent other countries from doing it.