Priorities for the New UK Critical Minerals Strategy

The world has changed markedly since the UK belatedly published its first Critical Minerals Strategy. Launched in 2022 by the previous Conservative government, the document set out the UK’s plan to deliver resilient supply chains – by expanding domestic capabilities, collaborating with partners and enhancing international markets.

The document provided a useful overarching framework – and some concerted action has been taken in the intervening years, including an effort to refresh the strategy the following year.

Today, however, these documents have largely been overtaken by sharpening geopolitical contestation, global economic fragmentation and an industrial landscape marked by forceful critical minerals dealmakingand creeping export controls. The UK must outline a more concrete strategic approach, backed with the resourcing and tools to implement it. Failure to deliver will impede progress on issues from decarbonisation to rearmament and economic growth.

Losing Ground

The concerns around the previous strategy are well-known. The year after its launch, a Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry found that the document did ‘not convey . . . the need for decisive action’ to allow the country ‘to compete effectively for resources and meet net zero commitments’.

The UK, it found, was ‘lagging behind allies’, lacking ambition in response to a complex geopolitical challenge. In particular, the strategy was criticised for failing to grapple with the UK’s vulnerability to China’s extensive capture of key markets: ‘Allowing a single country to dominate the UK’s critical minerals supply chains . . . [has left it] with a mountain to climb to address the consequent vulnerabilities’.

Nor did the strategy set out a clear approach to sustainability, lacking a clear policy programme to deliver the laudable ambition to play ‘a leading role in global efforts to drive up ESG performance to improve resilience of supply chains’.

Practically, the strategy lacked targets and clear plans for delivery. Mining company Anglo American labelled it a ‘guiding framework’, calling for ‘tangible policy actions, backed by appropriate funding’. While the 2023 refresh took steps in this direction, it did ‘not substantially narrow the overall scope of the strategy’ or provide sufficient information on the UK’s approach at key points in the value chain.

Raising the Stakes

Today, mounting contestation and an accelerating energy transition have only increased the importance of secure, sustainable access to minerals.

Indeed, in 2025, critical minerals have emerged as an important sub-domain of economic warfare, given their centrality to new energy industries and defence technologies – in China, the US and elsewhere.

Contestation has become more systematic since then-US President Joe Biden’s enactment of the CHIPS and Science Act and the evolution of China’s export control regime. Most recently, President Donald Trump’s trade assault on China has shown the role of mutual pressurisation of supply chain vulnerabilities in deterrence and as a means of assault.

In April, in response, China added seven rare earth elements, as well as some permanent magnets, to its export control list, which has grown rapidly since 2023. The theatre of contestation is also broadening, extending from Latin America to Ukraine and central and southern Africa.

The UK is exposed to this contestation on multiple fronts. The threat of Chinese export restrictions and US sanctions makes downstream investment in supply chains and technologies more difficult. US–China rivalry could disrupt mineral flows – slowing the energy transition, creating security vulnerabilities as Europe rearms, and threatening investment in key supply chains.

What Action Has Been Taken?

The UK has not been inactive in the face of these developments. Since 2022, it has taken steps to strengthen domestic and international capabilities and partnerships.

At home, a cross-Whitehall infrastructure on critical minerals spans the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, Department of Business and Trade and Cabinet Office, among others. The launch of the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre in 2022 has added needed momentum. Outputs include a new criticality assessment methodology in 2023 and an expanded 2024 UK critical minerals list.

Plans for a broader Supply Chain Centre were outlined in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy and National Security Strategy 2025. This builds on a Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy paper published in January 2024 and a ‘Task and Finish Group’ report launched in December 2023. The latter made seven recommendations, which have nearly all seen at least some implementation.

Internationally, the UK actively engages in a range of relevant initiatives. These include the Mineral Security Partnership and the Conference on Critical Materials and Minerals – alongside engagement in fora such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance. The UK also launched a new mission focused on strengthening supply chains in April via the Global Clean Power Alliance.

Bilaterally, the UK has finalised non-binding agreements with countries including Saudi Arabia, Zambia and Australia. Work is also underway to incorporate mineral supply chains into industrial and clean energy Official Development Assistance (ODA) programming from 2026.

Yet this action masks wider domestic uncertainty. Most prominently, an up-to-date overarching strategic articulation of the UK’s approach to securing critical minerals is missing in action. This gap has grown ever-more significant as other countries have taken more muscular positions on supply security. From the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act to Australia’s Critical Minerals Strategy 2023–2030, the UK must set out its position against an ever-more complex strategic backdrop.

What Should a New Strategy Cover?

In presenting a distinctive critical minerals proposal, the UK must play to its interests, values and comparative advantages, fitted to the current international context. The country enjoys unique differentiators, as a mining address for major industry players; a global hub for mining finance; an international centre of metal trading; and host of unparalleled mining standards expertise. As outlined previously by the authors, the government is not yet working to leverage the confluence of these factors. It must now set out unambiguously how it will do so.

This will involve identifying the most pressing priorities and setting clear targets in these areas. It will also require clarity on the options at key stages of the critical minerals supply chain.

The UK operates at the end of this chain. At this point, it must be clear on how mineral and broader supply chain security will be embedded in defence, energy, transport, industrial and trade policy. To date, policy coherence has been lacking, with critical minerals not featuring in the 2023 Green Finance Strategy, for example. Decisions are needed on important policy options such as stockpiling, price flaws, and ‘green premiums’, which potentially touch on multiple government portfolios. Recycling has growing potential, but the security benefits are limited while processing takes place in China.

The strategy must also outline measures to stimulate investment in the minerals supply chain outside of the UK. In this and other areas, a sober analysis of shifting geopolitics is crucial, alongside an in-depth assessment of vulnerabilities in priority industrial supply chains. The strategy must be clear on which chokepoints are most critical to the UK and which policy instruments are best suited to the highly varied industrial and geographic context of different minerals and stages of production.

The international dimension of the previous strategy was underdeveloped – a gap that must now be fully addressed. In setting out its approach, the UK should be clear that it opposes the application of export controls and other sanctions to critical minerals, including by allies. This should be a touchstone of the relationship with China and part of dialogue with the US. In parallel, the UK must coordinate with its closest allies to urgently invest in key supply chains, such as rare earths.

In advancing its goals, the UK has made progress identifying funding vehicles for public investment, including UK Export Finance and the National Wealth Fund. However, the forthcoming strategy must set out more clearly what investments within the UK and internationally are expected to achieve. Outward investment should strengthen supply chain security, while inward investment will support jobs and security at the margins.

A further international priority should be to support the development of more transparent and liquid critical mineral markets. The UK is respected as a global financial hub and has strong expertise in commodity markets. Leveraging this to improve price discovery and support developing countries both in their dealings with the global industry and to strengthen ESG performance would help level the playing field for Western miners.

Finally, the strategy should clarify the role of original equipment manufacturers, including wind, EV and battery manufacturers. Despite expectations that they will provide the foundation of UK energy production, wind turbine and other manufacturers lack the kind of government attention paid, for example, to oil and gas majors. The government must work in a more targeted manner with industrial players to incentivise and require measures to improve supply chain security.

Championing a Sustainable Sourcing Agenda

In addressing these points, the government must be explicit on its approach to mitigating ESG risks. While stressing the need to ‘level the playing field’ for responsible companies to mitigate risks, it has not previously set out a clear policy programme in this area.

The authors have stressed the potential to exploit key levers to improve standards. These levers sit at the intersection between the UK’s unrivalled domestic ESG expertise and its status as home to the City of London and London Metals Exchange. Proactive government leadership is urgently needed to ensure effective cross-fertilisation between these areas.

Embodying this leadership, the strategy must address the tension between the goal to promote the City as the global centre of responsible mining finance and the risks where this displaces capital-raising. It is crucial that it outlines measures to ensure London remains attractive to industry, presenting an enabling financial ecosystem rewarding of best practice.

Key to this will be recognition of the potential role for the UK in driving standardisation. Regulatory alignment in key areas is crucial – from the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive to its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. This should accompany broader efforts to deepen cooperation with EU and other like-minded partners.

Targeted engagement with China on sustainability measures could also feature, to improve UK competitiveness. As the dominant global player in critical minerals mining and processing, the strategy should guide key stakeholders in leveraging remaining avenues for cooperation.

Ultimately, promoting responsible mining standards is key to long-term efforts to strengthen the resilience of mineral supply chains. Leverage of the UK’s comparative advantages in this space should be at the core of the government’s approach.

Mission Critical

Much is riding on the forthcoming strategy. As important as its content is clarity on how the UK can deliver amid rising geopolitical tensions and global economic fragmentation. A judicious assessment of the structure of government machinery around this issue is needed – as is a strengthening of both the policy toolkit and current resourcing levels.

The UK has long lagged other players on critical minerals. Getting the new strategy right is key – for industry, net zero and national security. A more targeted, clear-eyed and long-term approach – built around a more systemic and strategic approach to international partnerships – is now urgently required.

© RUSI, 2025.

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