The UK is dangerously reliant on China for critical minerals needed by its military, renewable energy infrastructure and artificial intelligence industries, a parliamentary investigation has found. MPs on the House of Commons business select committee are calling for a centralised policy and a dedicated finance facility to support mining and diversify supplies.
The proposed facility would use grants, equity and debt to help fund mines producing rare earths and other critical minerals. The committee also called for a plan to identify domestic mining, refining and recycling opportunities, encourage businesses to reduce procurement from China, unlock investment and assess whether planning rules are a barrier to mining.
Committee chair Liam Byrne said the UK could not rearm, build AI or deliver net zero without securing the minerals these technologies rely on. The report warned that China dominates the processing of several critical minerals, including lithium used in electric vehicles and rare earths used in military aircraft.
MPs were told that demand for lithium could increase 45-fold by 2030, while demand for rare earths used in permanent magnets could rise 16-fold over the same period. The committee said China’s ability to cut off supplies made the UK’s dependence a strategic risk to the economy and national security.
The report said the UK should work with G7 partners, other European countries and Indo-Pacific nations to combine demand and bring in new suppliers. It also criticised a lack of government transparency, saying Parliament could not see which capabilities the government was protecting, what vulnerabilities it had identified or which projects it was backing to reduce risk.
The government disputed the suggestion that it lacked a critical minerals strategy. A spokesperson said it was providing £400m to increase domestic production and recycling and build international partnerships. The strategy, they added, aims for domestic production to meet 10% of demand by 2035 and recycling to meet 20%, while ensuring no single country supplies more than 60% of any critical mineral.
Sources: The Guardian Politics.