Burnham axes DSIT and puts an AI minister in cabinet

TL;DR:

• Kanishka Narayan, previously a junior AI and online safety minister, has been named minister for AI and will attend cabinet — the first time the role has carried that status.
• The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has been abolished as a standalone entity, with functions dispersed and the bulk absorbed into a merged department under Jonathan Reynolds.
• Liz Kendall has stood down and Lord Patrick Vallance quit as science minister ahead of the reshuffle.

Andy Burnham’s first cabinet has delivered both halves of what the technology sector spent last week arguing about. The AI brief has been elevated to cabinet attendance, which industry wanted. DSIT has been broken up, which it did not.

Narayan framed the promotion as a statement of intent, saying the prime minister had asked him to attend cabinet “a sign of his deep commitment to AI’s importance” and describing AI as likely the most significant technology in human history. Jonathan Reynolds returns to lead a department combining business and trade with innovation and science, a portfolio he last held in 2024.

What DSIT was holding

Created in 2023, DSIT carried the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the AI Security Institute, the £500m Sovereign AI Fund and UK Research and Innovation, and served as the sector’s single point of contact in government. Those responsibilities now sit across more than one department.

We covered the backlash when the plans were still unconfirmed, and the warnings were specific. Former government AI adviser Matt Clifford called the reported move “a big mistake”, arguing that tying up senior officials in a reorganisation wastes time needed for substance. AI Security Institute chair Ian Hogarth put it more bluntly, telling City AM that the best civil servants are there to have impact and that random re-orgs drive them out. techUK and the Startup Coalition wrote jointly to Burnham calling it “the wrong change at the wrong time”.

Kendall’s parting shot

Kendall’s resignation statement read as a warning to her successor, citing ONS figures showing science and technology as the key drivers of UK economic growth and arguing it is essential to maintain momentum. The timing is pointed: fresh ONS data published the same week shows UK business AI adoption widening but not deepening.

Looking forward

A cabinet seat is real leverage, and Narayan now has it. The open question is whether one minister with cabinet attendance can direct an agenda whose delivery machinery — compute, the safety institute, research funding, digital regulation — has just been distributed across several departments with competing priorities. The sector’s argument was never about status. It was about months lost to reorganisation.