Michelle Emma May Elizabeth Donelan (born 8 April 1984) is a British politician who previously served as Secretary of State for Science,Innovation and Technology from July 2023 to July 2024,having previously served in the position from February[3] to April 2023 before being temporarily replaced during her maternity leave.
Donelan contested the new Melksham and Devizes constituency in July 2024 and was defeated.
Early life and education
Michelle Donelan was born in April 1984,[1] the daughter of Michael Donelan and his wife Kathleen Johnson,and grew up in Whitley,Cheshire.[4][5] At the age of 15,Donelan spoke at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool,[2] having decided at the age of six to become a politician.[6]
She was then selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Chippenham in February 2013.[7][1][10] After her selection at Chippenham,she became a trustee of Help Victims of Domestic Violence,a charitable organisation based in the town and a member of the Steering Group of Wiltshire Carers.
At the 2015 general election,Donelan was elected to Parliament as MP for Chippenham with 47.6% of the vote and a majority of 10,076.[11][12][13]
On 7 July 2022,after less than 36 hours in the role,Donelan resigned as Secretary of State,writing that Johnson had "put us in an impossible position".[26] She was the shortest-serving cabinet member in British history,her tenure being shorter than Earl Temple's four-day tenure as Foreign Secretary in 1783.[27] Following reports she would receive severance pay at Secretary of State level despite her short tenure,Donelan refused this payment.[28]
She stated in January 2023 that she was against returning the Parthenon marbles to Greece,on the grounds that restitution would "open a can of worms" and be a "dangerous road to go down."[35] In the same month,Donelan cancelled a plan to privatise Channel 4 that had been announced by Nadine Dorries under Boris Johnson's premiership.[36]
Secretary of State for Science,Innovation and Technology
It was announced on 21 April 2023 that during her maternity leave,Donelan would be temporarily replaced as Secretary of State by Chloe Smith.[37] She returned to her ministerial role on Thursday 20 July 2023 after three months of ministerial maternity leave.[38]
In April 2023,following the release of the GPT-4large language model,Donelan announced that the UK would spend £100 million in initial funding for the Foundation Model Taskforce,modelled on the success of the COVID-19 Vaccine Taskforce,which would seek to ensure the responsible development of advanced artificial intelligence models and mitigate the risks. Soon after,hundreds of AI experts including Geoffrey Hinton,Yoshua Bengio,and Demis Hassabis signed a statement acknowledging AI's risk of extinction. Tech entrepreneur Ian Hogarth,who warned about the race to "God-like AI" and urged governments to intervene with significant regulation,was later named chair of the taskforce.[41][42]
Donelan announced in November that the taskforce would become the AI Safety Institute.[43] In the same month,the inaugural AI Safety Summit was held at Bletchley Park,which resulted in almost 30 countries,including the U.S. and China,signing a declaration calling for international cooperation to mitigate the risks posed by AI.[44] In April 2024,Donelan and US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo signed an agreement between the UK and US AI Safety Institutes,to allow them to work together on testing advanced AI models.[45][46]
Libel settlement
In October 2023,in her role as science minister,Donelan wrote to the head of UKRI (the body which directs government funding to research and innovation) suggesting that two academics recently appointed to a UKRI advisory group had expressed sympathy for Hamas and shared extremist views.[47] The letter was also published at Donelan's Twitter/X account. In response,Ottoline Leyser,UKRI chief executive,suspended the advisory panel and began an inquiry.[48] Over 2,500 academics signed an open letter condemning Donelan's accusation as an attack on academic freedom.[49]
In March 2024,Donelan publicly retracted the allegations and deleted the October tweet. One of the academics,Kate Sang of Heriot-Watt University,had commenced a libel action against Donelan,who was represented by the government legal service.[50] According to Sang's lawyer,Donelan had based her allegations on a misleading press release from the Policy Exchange lobby group.[51] Donelan's department paid compensation of £15,000 to Sang,plus legal costs. Donelan also apologised to the second appointee.[47][52][53] Sang's lawyer said "It is extraordinary that a minister should be guided by a lobby group into making serious false allegations about private citizens without doing the first piece of due diligence."[47]
The total cost to public funds was said in April 2024 to be more than £34,000,comprising the previously disclosed £15,000 compensation to Sang,alongside legal costs of £7785 for the Government Legal Department and £11,600 for external legal counsel.[54] In addition,UKRI spent £15,000 on the investigation and £8,280 on legal advice.[55]
Parliamentary Candidate for the new Melksham and Devizes constituency
In May 2023,Donelan announced she would be contesting at the next general election the Melksham and Devizes constituency,[56] where she lived,[57] as the boundaries of her Chippenham seat had been redrawn. When the election took place in July 2024,she was defeated by Brian Mathew of the Liberal Democrats.[58]
Personal life
Donelan is married to Tom Turner. His family's firm Stronghold Global,a procurement company,has had government supply contracts.[59] In December 2022,Donelan announced that she was expecting a baby[60] and went on maternity leave at the end of April 2023.[61]
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