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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he will consider the mining of Lithium in Cornwall as part of the industrial strategy.

Our Industrial Strategy is about driving growth right across the whole country. We will work with places to build on their particular strengths and to address barriers to growth.

The Government is aware that Cornwall has been identified as a having potentially valuable lithium resource, which is a key element in battery technology. That technology has great potential, which we are backing with £246m through a Faraday Challenge to boost expertise in the UK.

The current exploration for lithium ore reserves and research to extract lithium from geothermal brines has potential to provide a UK source, though it is for the private sector to demonstrate there are commercial opportunities and this sort of opportunity, clearly linked to a location, underpins the department’s local industrial strategy policy.