New prime minister Andy Burnham has shut down the federal government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and merged it with the enterprise department.
Led by former enterprise secretary Jonathan Reynolds, the brand new department is named the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade.
The transfer comes regardless of robust calls by many technology entrepreneurs and experts calling to keep DSIT. A letter despatched to the brand new prime minister by Julian Harris, CEO at Tech UK, and Dom Hallas, govt director at Startup Coalition, mentioned it will be “the wrong change at the wrong time” and ship “a terrible signal” to the tech sector.
Matt Clifford, Keir Starmer’s AI alternatives adviser, mentioned it “would be a big mistake”, including that “right now is a critical moment for tech as an economic and national security issue”.
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