Axing UK science department risks slower policymaking, say tech leaders

Andy Burnham’s decision to axe the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has sparked alarm among UK tech leaders, who fear the shake-up will slow policymaking just as AI advances speed up.

New business secretary Jonathan Reynolds will take charge of technology in a beefed-up Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST), a move reported by the FT last week and confirmed by Downing Street on Monday.

Under the reorganisation, public sector AI adoption and the AI Security Institute will move to the Cabinet Office and be overseen by Kanishka Narayan, who was responsible for AI policy under Sir Keir Starmer.

Narayan’s role has now been boosted to cabinet level, and he will serve jointly at the Cabinet Office and in Reynolds’ department.

As US Big Tech groups invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI and start-ups flock to the UK, the new prime minister’s move to elevate the fast-evolving technology to the cabinet for the first time was welcomed by some in the tech industry.

“Having the most important general-purpose technology of our lifetimes at cabinet level and in the centre — and as a bonus, with a great minister — that sounds like a good thing to me,” said Saul Klein, start-up investor at venture capital group Phoenix Court and former non-executive director at DSIT.

But many other tech entrepreneurs and investors said they feared the reorganisation would push the industry down the government’s agenda, while Burnham’s overall interest in the sector was unclear.

“Obviously the tech community’s reaction has been disappointment,” said Brent Hoberman of Founders Forum Group, a prominent UK tech event and investor, as sector figures worried about “a delay at a critical time for tech”.

Tom Westgarth, a former DSIT AI adviser who is now at UK chip start-up Fractile, said ministers needed “to allay the concerns of the wider tech sector that their industry may fall down the pecking order in a super-department”.

“It is important that [Narayan] can wield real levers to spearhead the government’s efforts to restore British dynamism and sovereignty,” he added.

Baroness Angela Smith, leader of the House of Lords, said the responsibilities of DSIT had been “redistributed to align with our core economic and social agenda, embedded as vital engines of growth”.

“This move recognises that technology and innovation are not separate sectors of our economy — they are the foundation of all future industry, culture, and public service delivery,” Smith said in a written statement.Burnham, who took office on Monday, would set up a task force on AI to “unlock the opportunities it holds for growth, prosperity and public sector transformation”, with strategy on the body led from the Cabinet Office, she added. Later on Tuesday the Lord Speaker granted an urgent question in parliament’s upper chamber on the abolition of DSIT.

The move for AI to be led out of the Cabinet Office was driven by cabinet secretary Dame Antonia Romeo, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.

But in a sign of the uneven planning of the switch, Number 10 initially said Narayan would be a minister in Lisa Nandy’s renamed Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport before clarifying that he would work from DBIST.

Harry Stebbings, founder of 20VC, said the break-up of DSIT, which was set up in 2023 by then Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak as part of the “science superpower” push, was “wrong and a mistake”. But Narayan’s promotion had helped to avoid a “revolt”, he added.

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Matt Clifford, co-founder of Entrepreneurs First and former AI adviser to Number 10 under Starmer, said on X that Narayan “understands the scale and urgency of the opportunity and has brought great energy and clarity to the role over the last year”.

Asked about concerns over the abolition of DSIT, Reynolds told the BBC on Tuesday that “bringing it in a powerful department, in government terms, is a big win for science”.

Yet tech figures said the decision to move the Government Digital Service, the agency charged with spreading modern technology across the public sector, to Nandy’s department meant the innovative unit risked losing influence.

“It will be a disaster,” said one person. Tom Loosemore, a founding partner of consultancy Public Digital who helped set up the GDS in the Cabinet Office in 2011, said: “If you are serious about a public sector fit for the 21st century, you need to have political muscle in charge of digital infrastructure... There is a huge risk about this going into DCMS.”

Others voiced concerns that another Whitehall reorganisation would waste time and create distractions, with subsequent frustrations potentially prompting some of the government’s tech hires to leave for significantly higher-paying jobs in the private sector.

Ben Johnson, co-director of policy group Science Works and a former UK government adviser, said there was “an enormous opportunity cost” to any departmental restructuring.

“It is very difficult to get top-level political attention for these critically important issues when they are merged into another department,” he added.