A UK government minister has denied press reports that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will be abolished under plans drawn up by the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer.
Chris Bryant—a minister of state across both the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the DCMS—addressed the issue in The House of Commons yesterday. He said: “I am not going to put this rumour to bed—I am going to bury it. I am absolutely certain that in a year’s time we will be able to sing, in the words of Stephen Sondheim from the musical Follies, ‘I’m still here’.”
His comments follow a report by The Sunday Times which claimed that the DCMS could be split between the business department, the education department and the Treasury, as part of a government overhaul. Under such plans Lisa Nandy, the secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport, could subsequently be dismissed.
Addressing Bryant, the Conservative MP for Gosport, Caroline Dinenage, told the parliamentary debate: “...rumours abound that the whole Department for Culture, Media and Sport is for the chop. The minister must see that this sends a terrible message to those sectors about how little their government value the power of those industries.”
The Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham, Max Wilkinson, also pushed the issue, saying: “The minister says he is burying the rumour about the abolition of DCMS, so why do so many people here think it will happen, and why is it being briefed to the press so often?”
Bryant said: “Honestly, the department is not going to be abolished; it would be absolute madness. This department touches the lives of nearly everybody in the country, every single day of the week, whether through sport— football, rugby, cricket, tennis—broadcasting, or our wonderful creative industries, so many different aspects of what we do touch everybody’s lives. I cannot see any way in which the department will be abolished.”
Last October the DCMS received a 2.6% real-terms increase in funding from the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, getting £2.3bn in total from 2025 to 2026 for capital spending on future projects. However, the Resource DEL figure (RDEL)—money spent on day-to-day resources and administration costs—was set at £1.5bn over three years (2023-26)—a drop in real terms of 2.5%.