Kanishka Narayan, the UK's new AI minister, has been handed a seat at the cabinet table – but the department he was meant to help lead no longer exists. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), created by the previous Conservative government in 2023, has been scrapped under Prime Minister Andy Burnham, leaving no dedicated technology secretary for the first time in two years.
DSIT's responsibilities will be split across other government departments. The move comes after Burnham sacked Liz Kendall, who had held the technology secretary role, as part of a wider reshuffle. Narayan, appointed by former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, now reports directly to the PM rather than a secretary of state. He described the invitation to attend cabinet as a "sign of his deep commitment to AI's importance".
“AI minister Kanishka Narayan gets cabinet seat but tech department DSIT scrapped in Burnham shake-up.”
Born in India and raised in Cardiff, Narayan worked in government and business before entering Parliament in 2024 as the MP for the Vale of Glamorgan. His brief as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State covered AI opportunities, the AI Security Institute, semiconductors and online safety – responsibilities he is expected to continue shepherding, though now without Kendall's leadership.
In a post on X in the early hours of Tuesday, Narayan wrote: "AI is likely the most significant technology in human history. Its impact will dwarf other things. The best case for it is compelling beyond our dreams: a reindustrialised Britain, stronger national security, public services transformed for the better." He acknowledged that AI also poses real risks to the public, adding "it is right that the British public shares those worries, for jobs, for the pace of change".
Industry figures reacted with caution. Dom Hallas, head of the tech trade body Startup Coalition, said it was key that with the dismantling of DSIT, the government did "not take the foot off the pedal" with tech. The previous department had provided good foundations, he said, and the priority should now be spreading AI tech adoption through government and the wider public. "The abolition of DSIT is clearly a bad thing but if anyone could make up for it in Cabinet it would be Kanishka who knows start-ups and the ecosystem better than anyone in Government," Hallas told the BBC.
Professor Gina Neff, head of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, pointed to multiple policy challenges ahead, including how society deals with the threat of AI replacing jobs. But she said elevating an AI minister to cabinet at least sent a signal that the Prime Minister was "serious about having someone serious in this key role".
The reshuffle leaves the technology sector without a dedicated department at a time when AI regulation and adoption are accelerating. Narayan's new status may give him more influence, but he now faces the task of coordinating across Whitehall without a ministerial department to back him.