“Critical minerals are essential to the U.K.’s economy, national security, and clean energy transition,” the strategy declared.
Cornwall’s two biggest lithium extractors, British Lithium and Cornish Lithium, estimate they could produce 45,000 tons per year combined. Both companies have demonstration facilities up and running, with plans to begin commercial production before the end of the decade.
This sort of domestic production will help the country “wrest control” of critical minerals from China and other countries, Energy and Industry Minister Chris McDonald said in December.
Law was in the U.S. last week at the behest of the Foreign Office to meet firms in the supply chain there, just as the U.K. signed a critical minerals partnership with the White House. Donald Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, has pitched to establish a U.S-led critical minerals bloc with 54 countries, including the U.K.
That is an opportunity, Vance said last month, to “never have to rely on anybody else, except for each other, for the critical minerals necessary to sustain our industries and to sustain growth.”
The Cornwall Four
Labour’s new wave of Cornish minerals enthusiasts, who entered parliament in the 2024 landslide general election win, also includes the MPs Anna Gelderd and Perran Moon.