Andy Burnham’s plan to gut the government department leading Britain’s AI strategy has prompted a fierce backlash from the tech industry.
Senior industry leaders warned that plans to abolish the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and spread its functions between other departments would undermine the country’s AI strategy at a key moment.
In a letter to Mr Burnham, lobby groups Tech UK and Startup Coalition urged the incoming prime minister to rethink his plans, warning that breaking up the tech department would send a “terrible signal” and undermine the AI sector.
The UK Tech Cluster Group, another lobbying organisation, said breaking up DSIT would “create disruption at exactly the wrong moment”.
Tom Skinner, a former special adviser in DSIT under the previous government, said: “DSIT looks after the frontiers of all the technologies where the UK needs to excel.
“Understandably, the politicians’ focus will be on issues like nationalising the steel industry, or water companies, or post offices.
“But if the Government wants any growth at all, they’re going to need a growth miracle and the way to achieve that is by doubling down on all the things that DSIT looks after.”
Writing in The Telegraph, Julia Lopez, the shadow technology secretary, said the department was being “broken up in the knacker’s yard”.
Robert Jenrick, Reform’s Treasury spokesman, called Mr Burnham “a Luddite who cares more about hammering business and taking the country back to the 1970s with state control”.
In his first speech as Labour leader last Friday, Mr Burnham complained about the “deindustrialisation of the 1980s” but made no mention of AI or technology more broadly.
According to reports, Mr Burnham is considering redistributing DSIT’s functions across a beefed-up Department for Business and Trade and a bolstered Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
Mr Burnham is expected to reward his allies with the briefs. Jonathan Reynolds, the current chief whip, has been lined up to lead the business department while Lucy Powell, who represented the incoming prime minister on media rounds on Sunday, is expected to take on the culture brief.
The senior Labour source said she had pitched for a “big department to run”, which could explain Mr Burnham’s potential expansion of DCMS to include some aspects of AI and science policy.
Lucy Powell is expected to take on the culture brief in Andy Burnham’s Cabinet – Toby Shepheard/AFP via Getty Images
Mr Burnham is also said to be preparing to give an AI minister a seat in Cabinet, in a move apparently designed to signal the topic’s continued importance.
However, tech leaders said the reshuffle threatened to set back key initiatives such as the development of “sovereign” systems and the UK AI Security Institute at what experts said was a formative time for the fast-changing industry.
In their letter to Mr Burnham, Tech UK and Startup Coalition urged the incoming prime minister to “use this moment to strengthen tech leadership at the heart of government, not dismantle it”.
They said: “DSIT works because it brings researchers, AI practitioners, innovators and policymakers together in one department – a single front door that gives the tech sector clarity, pace and a government partner that understands technology and champions the sector in the cabinet.
“Breaking up the work of DSIT endeavours such as the world-leading AI Safety Institute, the Sovereign AI fund, the Government Digital Service and UK Research and Innovation would slow momentum at a time when pace is essential for both the growth of the economy and our standing on the global stage.
“It also sends a terrible signal to a sector that is growing at 10pc a year. This is clear from the immediate reaction of the sector to these reports thus far.”
Entrepreneurs and experts also questioned the plan. Matt Clifford, a former Downing Street adviser on AI, described it as “a big mistake”.
“Right now is a critical moment for tech as an economic and national security issue,” he said. “Tying up our most senior science and tech officials in a reorg wastes time and energy that’s desperately needed for the actual substance.”
Matt Clifford says breaking up the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology would be ‘a big mistake’ – Rii Schroer
Liz Kendall, the Science and Technology Secretary who is expected to be sacked by the new prime minister, recently warned the UK had just two years to cement a significant foothold in AI or risk having it “done to us” by other countries.
On Friday, stock markets were rattled by the launch of an advanced new Chinese AI model which has shaken assumptions about the US’s lead in the global race to develop the technology.
The launch of Moonshot’s Kimi K3 model has highlighted how rapidly the sector is evolving.
Meryem Arik, the chief executive of London AI start-up Doubleword, warned that the next two years were “completely critical given the pace of change”.
She said DSIT was “the one department that really understands technology and the scale of the challenge we face”. She added it had already been paralysed by political uncertainty in recent weeks because of Labour’s change in leadership and that further disruption would be “a huge missed opportunity”.
“They are currently working on a number of projects that are essential for AI sovereignty and growth which cannot be delayed,” Ms Arik said.
One tech industry insider who worked with Mr Burnham during his years as mayor of Greater Manchester said the proposal to break up DSIT was disappointing because “he was very pro-AI and tech in general as mayor”.
Harry Stebbings, the founder of venture fund 20VC, said DSIT had thus far been a “shining light” in a Labour administration that had otherwise lurched from “one calamity to another”.
Abolishing it would cause talent and investors to quit the UK and leave the country “in a more precarious position than ever”, he warned.
A spokesman for Mr Burnham declined to comment.
