Andy Burnham’s first moves as Prime Minister are leading the headlines today. He promised a 10-year plan to transform Britain with a “new political model and new economic model” focused on reindustrialisation and a rollback of privatisation.
Burnham appointed John Healey as Chancellor and folded the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) into the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST) and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The Business Department will be absorbing the science and innovation briefs, while digital regulation and online safety briefs return to DCMS. While the tech sector has expressed concerns over the scrapping of DSIT, former Business Secretary and former Chair of the Science Select Committee Greg Clark said the reorganisation can break down silos and make the department more joined-up and effective.
Junior ministers have yet to be confirmed, but Tech Secretary Liz Kendall and Science Minister Lord Vallance have left the Government. Lord Vallance — formerly the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser and himself a scientist — earned praise from the science and research community for his thorough grasp of the brief. As Science Minister, Vallance secured the largest ever R&D settlement — with DSIT’s Spending Review 2025 settlement officially billed by the department as a “record” allocation, rising from £13.9 billion in 2025-26 to £15.2 billion by 2029-30. His departure and the scrapping of DSIT lead to uncertainty over funding for R&D and scientific research (Paywall – Times Higher Education) in the next round of the spending review.
Burnham has reportedly been exploring (Paywall – Financial Times) a spending review this autumn. Both DBIST and DCMS face competing priorities with unprotected budgets (their budgets are not ringfenced like Health and Social Care’s), and the loss of a departmental Cabinet minister compounds the uncertainty over future R&D funding.
With Liz Kendall and Lord Vallance leaving the Government, AI Minister Kanishka Narayan is the only survivor from the now defunct DSIT. Narayan is well regarded across the tech sector. Matt Clifford has praised his grasp of the urgency behind the AI opportunity, while Ian Hogarth has said he is “hard-working, smart and cares”. Formerly Parliamentary Under-Secretary for AI and Online Safety, Narayan’s promotion to Minister of State for AI means he will get to focus solely on AI. He will be spanning the Cabinet Office and the expanded Business Department. Narayan will also oversee a new AI Taskforce to “drive the Government’s overall strategy on AI”, which reports to Downing Street and the Cabinet Office.
For the first time, the AI Minister will also be given a seat at the Cabinet table as a Minister of State even if he’s not heading up a department. Prime Ministers signal their priorities by inviting non-Cabinet ministers to attend the Cabinet. Keir Starmer had the International Development Minister attending the Cabinet as a consolation for not reinstating the Development Department, while Rishi Sunak had the Immigration Minister and Security Minister attending the Cabinet.
Jonathan Reynolds is back in his previous position as Business Secretary, but now with the Business Department absorbing the innovation and technology portfolio from DSIT. When Labour was first elected, Reynolds spoke at our launch for the Backing Breakthrough Businesses report in the House of Lords, where he acknowledged economic growth below the post-war trend and the need to break out of this pattern. He has built strong relationships with businesses during his previous tenure as Business Secretary and inherited goodwill from that tenure — with him returning to his old position, there is hope for some stability.
Whether the machinery of a merged department can match the profile DSIT held under a standalone Secretary of State remains to be seen, but Reynolds’s return at least gives the sector a minister the entrepreneurial community has already worked with, and some reason to expect continuity in how the brief is handled.