UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced his new cabinet after removing several prominent ministers from the former Keir Starmer administration. He has promoted some of his allies to senior positions and has introduced greater diversity in the reshaped cabinet. Two of the new members are of Indian origin.
Kanishka Narayan has been appointed as the UK’s first AI minister, elevating the previously junior position to a Cabinet-level role.
Under former Prime Minister Keir Starme narayan held a junior ministerial position as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for AI and Online Safety.
He served under technology secretary Liz Pendall, who was ousted from her post on Monday.
Narayan was born in Muzaffarpur, Bihar and moved to Cardiff as a child. He completed his education at the University of Oxford and earned a Master's in Business Administration from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Since 2024, he has served as a member of Parliament for the Vale of Glamorgan. he has become the first ethnic minority MP in Welsh history with the seat.
Lisa Nandy is another minister with Indian roots who has been reappointed to her current position as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. She is the longest-serving culture secretary since Jeremy Hunt in 2010.
Born in Manchester, Nandy is the daughter of Professor Dipak Nandy, who hails from Kolkata and British-born Luise Byers. She was first elected as the Labour MP for Wigan in 2010, becoming the constituency's first female and Asian MP.
In 2020 she raced for the leadership post against Keir Starmer. Her campaign earned her the description “refreshingly untribal”. Her campaign also ended up landing her in the role of shadow foreign secretary.
Another South Asian, Shabana Mahmood, the first Pak-origin woman to be appointed the Home Secretary in Keir Starmer’s Cabinet in 2025, also retains her position in this government.
