Government must put its foot on accelerator to address the UK’s critical minerals vulnerabilities

8 March 2024

The Foreign Affairs Committee today (Friday 8 March) publishes the Government response to its report “A rock and a hard place: building critical mineral resilience”.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) disagrees with the Committee’s conclusion that successive UK Governments have failed to recognise the importance of critical minerals to the UK economy. It rejects the finding that the Government has failed to respond adequately to the aggressive capture of large parts of the market over the last three decades by China, but says it recognises “the dominant position that China has developed across a number of critical mineral supply chains”.

The response also disagrees with the Committee’s conclusion that, before writing the Critical Minerals Strategy, the Government did not adequately assess the vulnerabilities and dependencies in the UK’s industrial supply chains. It disagrees with the Committee’s conclusion that Government failed to recognise the urgency of the UK’s current vulnerable position.

The response agrees with the Committee’s assessment of the importance of critical minerals to the UK’s security. It accepts the Committee’s case for a “Team UK” offer, saying that the Government is “developing a ‘UK Proposition’ to communicate its strengths, ambitions and offer to international partners”.

Chair's comment

Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, Alicia Kearns MP, said:

"Since the launch of our Critical Minerals inquiry Government has made progress to address the UK’s current vulnerabilities in its critical mineral supply chains. Work has been done to ensure that Whitehall and industry are singing from the same hymn sheet – we’d previously heard that Government was failing to communicate its strategy to the sector.

However, it is disappointing that Government hasn’t fully accepted the need for urgency. We will have to fundamentally change how we source the critical minerals we depend on, and while this takes time, China’s overwhelming market dominance refining minerals is a threat to our national security and economic resilience. This means that we must start making changes now, moving beyond strategy documents.

This requires a whole of Government approach, given the scale of the task ahead, and a foot firmly on the accelerator.

In our report we called for a Team UK Proposition. We are pleased to see that Government is working towards a coherent ‘Team UK’ offer to businesses and trading partners. However, we are lagging behind our allies the USA and Europe, and more work needs to be done to ensure the UK can compete internationally.”

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