MPs Say UK Is Dangerously Reliant on China for Minerals Needed for Defence and AI

MPs on the business select committee called for a single, centralised critical minerals policy and a new "critical minerals finance facility" that would use grants, equity and debt to fund rare earth and other mining projects and speed up efforts to find other suppliers. The Guardian reported the findings on Thursday.

The committee's chair, Liam Byrne, framed the issue as a precondition for the government's other priorities. "We cannot rearm Britain, build AI or deliver net zero unless we secure the minerals these technologies depend on," he said, adding that 16 years after China "first weaponised its chokehold over rare earths, Britain remains dangerously exposed." It is the second time in a week that his committee has criticised the government's approach to China.

The weak point, according to evidence the committee heard, is processing rather than mining. China dominates the refining of seven categories of minerals, including the refined lithium used in electric vehicle batteries and the rare earths used in military aircraft fuselages and wings to cope with extreme temperatures.

MPs were told that demand for lithium will rise 45-fold between now and 2030, and that demand for the rare earths used in permanent magnets, which go into military jets among other things, will rise 16-fold over the same period as Britain rebuilds its armed forces.

The committee pointed to recent disruption as evidence of the risk. China cut off rare earth supplies in 2025, and separate restrictions on legacy chips, after the Dutch intervention at China-owned Nexperia, left European carmakers "days away" from halting production last October.

Donald Trump secured a one-year pause on China's global rare earth export restrictions from Xi Jinping in October last year, and the pause has since been extended to January 2027 following the Chinese president's visit to Washington. The committee argued that this leaves Britain at the mercy of relations between the US and China. It said the most realistic response is to work with G7 partners, the rest of Europe and Indo-Pacific countries to pool demand and bring in new suppliers.

The MPs also complained that the government had not been open with them. "Parliament has no visibility of the capabilities the government is seeking to protect, the vulnerabilities it has identified, or the projects it is backing to reduce risk," the committee said.

Its 10-point plan includes identifying domestic mining, refining and recycling opportunities and their costs, a strategy to get businesses to buy less from China, a plan to unlock investment, and a review of planning and permitting rules that could hold up new mines. The committee said it could not be confident the government would meet any of the 10 tests, concluding that "the UK requires new institutional and financial muscle."

A government spokesperson rejected the suggestion that it had no strategy, saying it was spending £400m to increase domestic production and recycling and to build international partnerships. The spokesperson said the strategy's 2035 targets include meeting 10% of demand through domestic production and 20% through recycling, with no more than 60% of any critical mineral coming from a single country.