Global Tin Availability

I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of levels of global tin availability on the economy. Meur ras, Mrs Barker. It is an honour to serve under your chairship once again for such an important debate, not just for the UK’s domestic energy security but for global climate change. We were expecting more numbers when colleagues thought this was a Tinder debate, but when I explained that it was a tin debate, the numbers dropped off slightly. The ill-informed may associate tin with cans, but in fact our cans are made almost exclusively of aluminium and contain no tin. More learned colleagues will know that tin, which is used in virtually every electrical device, is increasingly indispensable in the technologies that underpin modern industries. The digital economy, the green economy and the artificial intelligence economy—tin is foundational to each. However, as with other critical minerals, the overconcentration of processing and supply among a small number of countries a long way from western Europe presents massive economic and geopolitical risks. While debates about critical minerals are often focused on lithium, tungsten, nickel and rare earths, tin is often inexplicably overlooked. I have to declare an interest, not only as an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on critical minerals but as the MP for the constituency of the last tin mine in the country to close in 1998. However, it is not only in Camborne and Redruth that the stirrings of excitement are almost palpable. Every single Cornishman and Cornishwoman across the globe will celebrate the return of an industry that goes way beyond just a job. Cornish tin may invoke something far more visceral and emotional, but before becoming a little starry-eyed about the return of Cornish tin mining, I feel it is incumbent on me to highlight tin’s new practical applications, the strategic case for it and the opportunity that we have in this country to rise to the challenges of global supply constrictions. About half of all tin is used as solder for electronics. It is simply unrivalled in connecting components on circuit boards, enabling electrical conductivity while preventing oxidation. As a result, it is integral to almost every piece of modern technology—every smartphone, laptop, data centre server, semiconductor, telecommunications network and advanced manufacturing system. They all totally rely on tin. Without tin, there are no circuit boards, and without circuit boards, there is no new industrial strategy. The 21st-century growth sectors—those at the global technological cutting edge—are increasingly driving demand for tin skywards. Electric vehicles require up to three times the tin of a combustion engine vehicle. Tin demand for solar panels has trebled over the last five years. Tin is required in 5G infrastructure, emerging battery technologies and renewable energy. Interestingly, tin is increasingly important in the development of AI. AI is often discussed in terms of software and algorithms, and less so the vast physical infrastructure that sits behind it, but from the racks to the power modules and networking switches, tin is essential to the physical architecture. In the fabrication of advanced AI chips, molten tin droplets are struck thousands of times per second by high-powered lasers as part of the extreme ultraviolet lithography process used to manufacture cutting-edge semiconductors. As Governments and companies invest billions in data centres and computational capacity, demand for tin in the UK is soaring. In the growth-driving IS-8 sectors alone, demand is expected to grow at an average of 19%, year on year, until 2035. Between now and then, a cumulative total of more than 27,000 tonnes of tin will be required. Here is the crux of the debate. Although demand is rapidly expanding, huge questions remain about the security and resilience of global supply. Extraction and processing are currently heavily concentrated in six countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, China, Indonesia, Myanmar, Bolivia and Peru. Those countries currently supply over 90% of primary production, while China alone refines more than half of global tin. With that comes blindingly obvious risk. We have seen in the strait of Hormuz what happens when a state weaponises its control of a choke point in global supply. The ramifications spread rapidly through entire economies. With tin, the UK is even more exposed to such global shocks because we currently produce none. We have already seen what happens to pricing with localised disruptions over the past few years: Myanmar’s 2023 Wa state mining ban; export licensing issues in Indonesia; and military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Because the tin market is relatively small in volume compared with other metals, it is the least traded by volume on the London metal exchange. Those modest disruptions have fuelled massive price increases. In 2025, the tin price surged 40% and has rallied a further 34% this year to date, rising to nearly £40,000 a tonne. Come 2035, there will be an expected shortfall of 85,000 tonnes per year in global supply. I will say that again: come 2035, there is expected to be a shortfall of 85,000 tonnes per year in global supply. The challenge with tin is also one of geology and ethics. Many producing regions are experiencing declining ore grades, often between 0.3% and 0.8%—I will come to it later, but the grade at South Crofty is well over 1%—and that means greater volumes of material must be processed to achieve the same output, which inevitably increases costs. At the same time, there are legitimate concerns about environmental impacts, labour standards and illegal mining activity throughout the global supply chain. I ask the Government to recognise the following. First, tin is fundamental to our advanced economy. Secondly, demand for tin will continue to far outstrip the inherently risky global supply chain. Thirdly, therefore, tin production and processing should be considered of strategic national importance, and an investment case for a tin smelter, based on UK economic security, should be developed as a priority. When it comes to UK critical minerals, we are falling well behind competitor states such as the United States, Canada, France and Australia. The US has announced more than $40 billion in funding for critical minerals projects since 2022, alongside major equity stakes in domestic mines. Our friends and neighbours in the member states of the European Union have committed more than €6 billion to critical mineral projects in this year alone. The UK has committed a tiny fraction of that sum. In that context, I turn back west to Cornwall. For four millennia, Cornwall has supplied tin to Britain and the world. Tin mining is woven into our history, identity and DNA, nowhere more so than in my constituency of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, where the old engine houses still grace our landscape. Tin is once again one of Cornwall’s greatest opportunities. Anchored by £28 million of National Wealth Fund investment, Cornish Metals is on course to reopen the South Crofty mine that shut 30 years ago. Hopefully, that will be achieved in 2028. South Crofty has the highest grade of unmined tin in the world. It is expected to produce up to 4,700 tonnes annually, equivalent to up to 1.6% of globally mined tin production, which could meet the demand from Britain’s growing IS-8 sectors. That is one mine; there are hundreds of mines across Cornwall with critical minerals. The range of those critical minerals is yet to be defined, but there is an awful lot of exploration going on at the moment. Nationally, this offers an opportunity to strengthen domestic supply resilience, reduce dependence on overseas extraction and support the development of strategic industries. For Cornwall, South Crofty could be transformative. My constituency of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle contains some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. Weekly median wages are £95 less than average, and the number of young people claiming unemployment benefits has risen by 26% this year alone. The opening of South Crofty will directly support hundreds of skilled jobs and thousands more in the wider supply chain. Multiplying that by the number of mines shows the importance of critical minerals to the Cornish economy. If we are serious about good growth being felt in every postcode, we must champion this kind of investment. I have previously raised concerns in the House about the UK’s domestic processing and refining capacity. At present, tin mined in Britain would need to travel to east Asia for processing before returning in a form that British manufacturers can use. That is economically, geostrategically and environmentally dire. What steps will the Government take to strengthen domestic critical minerals supply chains? What progress has been made in implementing the critical minerals strategy? What consideration has been given to supporting domestic processing and refining capacity? Can energy support schemes such as the British industrial competitiveness scheme play a greater role in ensuring that our critical minerals projects remain internationally competitive? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon)—the Tin Man—for securing this important debate. I would like to concentrate our focus, no pun intended, on the midstream and downstream applications of tin, of which Cornwall is the cornerstone and which is an important part of the supply chain, as well as on some of the blockers to securing the supply that my hon. Friend talked about so eloquently. That is not to say that I do not worry about the upstream mining opportunities, but it is fair to say that Cornwall’s riches are abundant on that front. Yes, there will be bumps in the road, and yes, there will be successes and failures, as there have always been in the relatively high-risk business of mining, but what I really worry about is securing midstream processing. In the case of tin, it is the crucial smelting process that will enable us to keep our supply chain onshore. I will give a brief nod to Cornwall’s other, perhaps less famous but equally important critical minerals—namely lithium and tungsten, which are under our feet today. There are many more, but it is fair to say that, as it stands today, the big three—if I can use that term—are tin, lithium and tungsten. It is imperative that, across each of those three mineral resources, where we now have absolute clarity and visibility on the security of supply upstream, we start to think about the next stage of building those supply chains. Practically, what do we believe the Government can do to ensure that that happens? Let me start with why the Government should be involved in such a high-risk business. The fundamental question is what market failure are we trying to resolve here? No matter what a person’s ideology or political perspective on this matter, we have to accept that there is no way to build a supply chain like this from scratch and just leave it to the whim of the market. The example of China, where there has been huge state involvement, is perhaps an extreme one, but there is no way essentially to build a domestic supply chain of this kind from scratch by simply leaving it to the whim of individual firms to go out and do the right thing. That is why the Government’s involvement is crucial. We are not trying to solve a trick here; it is basic economics that the Government have a role to play in ensuring that we nurse the development of those supply chain projects, from a nascent idea or from something that various firms are thinking about on the side but which is not core to their business. Those junior miners already have a proper job on their hands, and it is not reasonable for the Government to snap their fingers and expect the processing opportunities to come about. That is where Government support is really valued. We already have the Kernow industrial growth fund, and I am hugely grateful to the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves), and to those in the Minister’s Department, for the work that they undertook to help us secure that investment, which is already being put to work on a pipeline of projects not just across this most promising of industries, but in many other Cornish industries besides. It will create those desperately needed jobs and help us to secure our industrial supply chains. What can the Government do? It is imperative that we involve ourselves wholeheartedly in the upstream development of those projects, work with credible industrial sponsors and source the financial capital needed. That is not to say that we should do it all alone. Private and public partnerships—which we are already seeing through partners such as the National Wealth Fund and the industrial growth fund—need to thrive to ensure that we create the conditions for success. Of course, there are many blockers, too, and it is important that the Department works with colleagues across the Government. For example, where there are challenges in getting a grid connection, securing appropriate transport links or unblocking planning barriers, we need a joined-up, cross-Government approach. I am proud to say that in Cornwall, the groundwork has been done. We have the visibility and the makings of a plan for how we might build that supply chain out. We have done the substantive work and the number crunching, and we have worked out what the capital need is and how much of it can be privately invested versus publicly catalysed. I ask that the Minister continues his work with us. The work has already begun, and I am incredibly grateful for his time and interest in this sector, but I implore him to bring colleagues from across the Government to meet the challenge and to help us secure the vital tin smelter and solve the energy cost issue, which is probably the immediate need. I implore him to go beyond that for the home-grown supply chain, in an industry in which I know Britain can succeed and Cornwall can be at the forefront. I implore him to work across Government to get this to the top of our agenda and make a success of it for everyone in Cornwall and Britain.

Meur ras, Mrs Barker; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I thank my Cornish colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon), for securing this important debate. As my hon. Friends from Cornwall know and speak about so powerfully, Cornwall has a proud mining heritage and was a key part of Britain’s first industrial revolution. We now have an opportunity to revitalise that in a way that serves our future aspirations. It is fantastic that this Labour Government have recognised that through the Kernow industrial growth fund. Local projects, such as the Cornwall Resources Redmoor tungsten and tin project, can bring crucially needed investment to areas like Callington in my constituency, as well as opportunities throughout South East Cornwall. We need to make sure that the benefits of those are felt by my local community; that means local skills, apprenticeships and good-quality jobs. I strongly believe that our young people should not feel that they have to leave the place they are from to get on in life and succeed. Tin and the mining opportunities of Cornwall are a significant factor in how we build their future hopes and aspirations. As my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth mentioned, demand for tin is increasingly driven by electronics, AI and clean energy. South East Cornwall can contribute its natural resources and hard-working and talented people to those growing industries. I welcome the Minister’s thoughts on how the critical minerals strategy connects with the Government’s wider industrial strategy and skills agenda. I am sure that he remembers fondly his previous visit to South East Cornwall. I put on record my thanks for his visit and extend another invitation for him to join me in future. We need to develop these resources responsibly. I am so proud that South East Cornwall is playing a role in securing that. Cornwall contains some of our country’s most important landscapes and ecosystems, and draws millions of tourists each year. We care about it and value it hugely, so we must ensure that environmental protection and restoration are built into mineral extraction from the outset. Being part of that heritage, we know how to do it well—areas that were doing it previously are supportive and have the expertise. We can lead the way domestically and internationally, and show how things are done without relying on imports. There is a real economic opportunity. The Government’s own critical minerals strategy recognised the gap in our tin supply chain: extracted tin is currently exported for refining before refined tin is imported again. Given that today’s tin price is almost £15,000 higher than at this point last year, the strategic importance of this specific mineral is growing. Can we use this opportunity to close that gap while creating processing and manufacturing jobs in the UK, alongside the already established mining jobs, as my colleagues have mentioned? This industry is of national importance, and it is strategically crucial for the country. That must be recognised as we look at this in more detail. We need to be strategic about Britain’s natural resources. We should learn from our experience with oil and gas, and think carefully about how we capture long-term value from the resources we have. I previously made the case for thinking differently about natural wealth and our natural resources, including the value of our data, and I see similar principles to apply here. These are national assets, but they are also local assets, and we can create long-term wealth if they are strategically managed for the public good, and as long as we are working with the incredibly important businesses that are doing such vital work in this area. Will the Minister set out how the Government will ensure that that value created by the private sector from public wealth in critical minerals is captured through things such as skills, innovation, domestic supply chains and future economic growth? These are opportunities that the people of Callington, in other areas of South East Cornwall and from across Cornwall will value highly. Cornwall can help to power the industries of tomorrow while ensuring that benefits to the community are felt today and in the future. The opportunities are significant. South East Cornwall is ready to play its part, once again, in this national push towards good economic growth, and we look forward to working with the Minister to do so.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) on securing this debate. Tin is one of those materials that most people never really think about, but our everyday lives depend on it because it is the material that physically holds all our devices together, with soldering being one of its most significant uses worldwide. It joins the components on our circuit boards. It is in almost every single device, from the smartphones that we all own to the computers and data centres powering the AI revolution. This debate is not about a niche commodity; it is about a key component of our everyday lives. However, one of the problems is scale. Globally mined tin output this year will be about 294,000 tonnes, which is absolutely tiny compared with copper or aluminium. That scale is so small that the market is acutely sensitive to any disruption in any single place. The supply of tin, as we know, is extraordinarily concentrated. China is one of its largest single producers, accounting for about a third of the global tin supply, and Indonesia, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo hold much of the rest. Several of the jurisdictions mining the majority of our tin are affected by international conflict, resource nationalism or simple geological decline, and the result, since 2025, has been the strongest price rally of any major industrial metal in the UK. The Government already recognise that, which is why tin sits on the UK’s critical minerals list. However, just because it is on the list, we do not necessarily get anything from that recognition. Many other countries know exactly what critical minerals they have in the ground. Canada is specifically good at that, knowing its exact critical minerals map across the nation. The UK Government do not have a critical minerals map for the entire United Kingdom, so I ask the Minister if there is a plan for his Department to try to see what critical minerals we have in the ground. We do know that tin is in the ground in Cornwall. It is not a new idea to extract tin from the ground there; it is one of the oldest industries on these islands. Cornish tin was being carted to the coast and shipped to the Mediterranean even before Rome ruled Britain. Under the Romans, extraction significantly increased. From the late Roman period to the late medieval period, Britain had a monopoly on the tin trade. Some 2,000 years later, we import almost all of our tin. Cornwall remained one of the most significant tin-producing regions for more than 400 years, and Cornish Metals is now doing work to try to re-establish that long history. Dewatering has reached about 350 metres in the tin mines we are looking to reopen, and the old pumping infrastructure has been found intact nearly three decades after it closed. We are glad to see flagship project status for that in the Government’s critical minerals strategy, and that the National Wealth Fund has invested £28 million in equity as part of its wider project. If we manage to reach the production targeted for 2028, South Crofty could create 300 direct jobs and hundreds more indirect jobs in the Cornish economy, in an area that is economically disadvantaged compared with large parts of the country. That is incredibly important. It would not just be important for the UK, as it would be the only primary tin mine in Europe or North America—not one of the largest, but the only one. That is why it is so significant: the United Kingdom and Cornwall have the chance to have one of the only tin-production facilities on this side of the world. We must take that into account when we consider how the critical minerals strategy will move forward. I have questions for the Minister on this topic. First, what practical steps are the Government taking to ensure that the mid-2028 target is met, particularly on permitting, skills and grid connection? Secondly, what assessment has been made of a strategic tin stockpile, particularly from the recovery of electronic waste, so that we reduce demand for imports rather than simply redirecting it? Thirdly, what is being done on due diligence, given that tin comes from some regions where trade is entangled with armed conflict? Fourthly, what is the Government’s plan for critical minerals partnerships with reliable partners around the world, in the European Union and in Commonwealth countries? An alternative supply chain can exist, but the United Kingdom is not large enough to do it on our own. However, with a coalition of the willing and other partners around the world, we could bring that forward, and we need to work for that. Resilience cannot be ordered at short notice; it must be built, and that building needs to start now, with our friends and neighbours.