I was in Strasbourg last week representing the UK along with a few other cross-party delegates at the Council of Europe (which is nothing to do with the EU, by the way). While I was there, news finally broke about the £28-million government investment in South Crofty tin mine, through the Treasury’s National Wealth Fund. This is hugely exciting news. It’s the news we’ve been waiting for, for many months. The management team at Cornish Metals, the company which owns South Crofty, has been working tirelessly to secure the investment to support South Crofty’s future as a viable tin mine once again.

Although the National Wealth Fund makes up a sizeable chuck of the investment, it’s not just about that £28-million government investment. Because the government has, in effect, taken an equity stake in South Crofty, it acts like a stamp of approval from government signalling to private investors that the project is of nationally significant importance to the UK economy. So private investors piled in to support Cornish Metals too. The total investment in this round of funding is likely to be north of a staggering £56-million.

I have been banging the drum for Cornish tin mining since well before the General Election and now in government, with various Ministers. It almost goes without saying that the Cornish Metals team have my full support, and I know that the community has their back too. After 27 years, it’s a massive leap forward towards tin being brought to the surface of a Cornish mine once again, with hundreds of new, high skilled, secure jobs being created locally. Cornish Metals already go out of their way to employ local Cornish talent. The vast majority of the folk already employed at South Crofty are Cornish and, if we’re keen to ensure that that record is maintained, we need to work together with our local schools, colleges, universities and businesses to ensure that Cornish education and skills development is geared towards the local opportunities that will come from having such an important employer on our doorstep. And if it employs 300 more people you can multiply that by four or five times, in terms of the indirect local jobs that will come from them.

But people still ask me why, if the mine shut 27 years ago because tin wasn’t viable, why are we spending all this money on tin now? Well, the simple truth is that times have changed dramatically since 1998. Tin is a vital component in the production of virtually every electrical device we use and is essential to our transition away from a fossil fuel-reliant economy. Demand for tin is therefore likely to increase exponentially over coming years. Currently the UK imports our tin from all over the world, with the huge carbon footprint that that entails. That environmental impact is largely removed if we’re able to secure domestic supply and processing. And here in Camborne and Redruth we sit on the highest grade unmined tin in the world! And there’s a lot of it. Under this Labour government, Cornish tin mining is back!

Perran Moon

Labour MP for Camborne and Redruth