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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the UK skill base for recycling and disposal of lithium ion batteries; and what plans the Government has to manage demand for those services.

To maximise on the economic and environmental opportunities of a transition to zero emission vehicles, the UK Government is supporting the creation of a circular economy for electric vehicle batteries.

The future demand for the recycling and disposal of lithium ion batteries and the UK skills base in this area has been assessed by Government and research into battery re-cycling, and the large scale industrialisation, is currently being undertaken.

To support this vital work, we have committed £318m to the Faraday Battery Challenge to fund the research, development and scale-up of world-leading battery technology in the UK. The innovation strand of the Faraday Battery Challenge is supporting several business-led collaborative R&D projects on reuse and recycle of electric vehicle batteries.

Policy is being formulated based on this research and Government is committed to building on the Faraday research programmes to ensure that we meet the skills and demand required to support this growing industry.