Peter John Kyle was born on September 9th 1970 and grew up in near Bognor Regis, West Sussex. He was educated at Felpham Comprehensive School (now Felpham Community College), near his home town.
While at school, he found out he had dyslexia and left school, in his own words, "without any usable qualifications". By the age of 25, he was accepted – on his third attempt – to become a student at the University of Sussex, where he gained a degree in Geography, International Development and Environmental Studies. He later gained a doctorate in Community Development.
He worked as an aid worker and as a project director for the charity Children on the Edge in Eastern Europe and the Balkans helping young people whose lives had been affected by the political instability created by the Bosnian War and Kosovan War, helping to establish an orphanage in Romania.
Personal life
From 2016 to 2017 Kyle was chair of governors of Brighton Aldridge Community Academy (Falmer High School in old money).
For eight years he was in a relationship with Czech-born Vlastimil Tiser, until Tiser's death in 2012. His mother died of cancer the following day. He told the Times in an interview that "2012, the year of the Olympics, one of the best years for many people, was the worst year of my life. I was on autopilot. There was constant adrenaline. Then afterwards, silence.”
His father passed away in 2024.
In Westminster
In 2006, Kyle became a Cabinet Office special advisor focusing on social exclusion policy. From 2007 to 2013, he was deputy chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO). In 2013, he became CEO of Working for Youth, a newly formed charity focusing on helping unemployed youth.
Peter was first elected to Westminster at the 2015 General Election, securing 42.3% of the vote, and a slim majority of 1,236 in the Hove constituency. In the aftermath of Labour’s defeat, a new leader was required, and Peter backed fourth-placed Liz Kendall. No fan of Jeremy Corbyn, Peter also backed Owen Smith in his ill-fated attempt to oust Corbyn a year later.
As a backbencher, Kyle sat on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee between 2016 and 2020. In May 2016, he questioned Mike Ashley, boss of Sports Direct, over poor working practices in his warehouses. Ashley accused Kyle of making "defamatory comments" against him and called for the MP to stand down from the committee.
Parliamentary Privilege allows Kyle - or indeed any MP – to ask what they want, and frame it how they see fit, without fear of prosecution for libel, if uttered within the Palace of Westminster.
He campaigned for remaining in the European Union during the 2016 referendum. In 2018, he rebelled against the Conservative government and the Labour Party whip in order to vote in favour of an amendment which would have kept the United Kingdom in the European Economic Area (EEA) in the event of the country leaving the European Union.
However, in 2022, six years after the referendum, he spoke in favour of Labour accepting Brexit and presenting a "positive vision for a better Britain" outside of the European Union.
Peter has championed apprenticeships, pledging in August 2016 to create 1,000 apprenticeships in 1,000 days in co-operation with the council and via the creation of a Greater Brighton Employer Skills Task Force.
Since 2020, he has held a variety of Shadow Minister roles, including Shadow Minister for Victims and Youth Justice; Shadow Minister for Schools; Shadow Norther Ireland Secretary and Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology.
In government
In July 2024, he was appointed Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. This elevation to a Cabinet role also conferred upon him elevation to the Privy Council, whereby he will hold the title ‘The Right Honourable’ for life.
His portfolio covers, among other things, the Online Safety Bill; oversight of science and technology; Research bureaucracy; overall R&D budget; economic and national security; Horizon Europe (the pan-European scientific research and innovation project); Advanced Research and Invention Agency; UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and much more.
As Secretary of State for DSIT, Peter has announced plans to revamp the department to transform public services and fuel economic growth through science and technology, all while integrating AI into the operations of government.
Peter envisions DSIT helping to “upskill civil servants so they are better at using digital and AI in their frontline work, as well as ensure the government has the right infrastructure and regulation to become more digital.”
He has outlined a plan for DSIT to coordinate the efforts of multiple departments across data, digital and AI. Under the new structure, experts within Government Digital Service, the Central Digital and Data Office and the government’s Incubator for AI will combine expertise under one department, according to the announcement.
The DSIT’s mission includes building a digital government framework to interact with the British public in a more personalised and efficient way, including providing citizens with single sign-on access across government services.
“This will form part of wider efforts to launch DSIT as the digital centre of government, working closely with the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, to maximise the potential of digital, data and technology to deliver for the British public,” concludes Kyle.
The Privy Council
The Privy Council is notionally the body of formal advisors to the sovereign. Members of the Cabinet, senior politicians, and a few other officials are appointed as members for life, and are personally entitled to be styled Right Honourable thereafter.
Privy counsellors are appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister, and remain members for life unless they resign or are expelled.
In practice, membership of the privy council is granted to:
• all members of the Cabinet;
• senior members of the Shadow Cabinet, the leaders of the major political partiesin parliament, and the Speaker of the House of Commons;
• the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the leader of the largest opposition party in the Scottish Parliament;
• the two archbishops of the Church of England, who sit in the House of Lords ex officio;
• senior judges, who fulfil the judicial functions of the Privy Council;
• senior representatives of the Commonwealth nations; and
• senior members of the royal family.
The Right Honourable (or The Rt Hon.) is anhonorific style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the UK, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. Right in this context is an adverb meaning 'very' or ‘fully'.
Grammatically, The Right Honourable is an adjective, rather than a title. Right may be abbreviated to Rt, and Honourable to Hon., or both. The is sometimes dropped in written abbreviated form, but is always pronounced.
What happens next?
One of Peter Kyle’s first appointments as Minister was to bring the highly-respected Sir Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific officer, into Government as Minister for Science, a role within DSIT.
The Labour Party’s General Election manifesto pledged several measures to help drive innovation and scientific and technological growth in the UK. They included a new industrial strategy and reforms to the planning system to support innovation by making it easier to build laboratories, digital infrastructure, and gigafactories.
The manifesto also pledged to support the development of the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, in particular by removing planning
barriers to new datacentres, and to create of a national data library to bring together existing research programmes and help deliver data-driven public services.
In addition, it has pledged to abolish short funding cycles for key R&D institutions, typically three years in length, in favour of ten-year budgets. It has also pledged to work with universities to support spinouts and with industry to ensure start-ups have the access to finance they need to grow.
Alongside these moves, it also promised to create a new regulatory innovation office to regulate rapidly developing technologies, notably AI. These, and many more science, innovation and technology-related pledges were made, and they all fall within the orbit of Peter Kyle’s government department.
Among the items in the King’s Speech, delivered on July 17th, Peter Kyle’s department will be at the helm of a Digital Information and Smart Data Bill will allow people to use digital ID to buy age-restricted products and for things like pre-employment checks, and a Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will set out new rules designed to protect critical infrastructure from attackers.
Additionally, coming under the purview of both Ed Miliband’s Energy department and Peter Kyle’s Science, Innovation and Technology department, the King’s Speech also said, quote, “My Government recognises the urgency of the global climate challenge and the new job opportunities that can come from leading the development of the technologies of the future.
“It is committed to a clean energy transition which will lower energy bills for consumers over time. A Bill will be introduced to set up Great British Energy, a publicly owned clean power company headquartered in Scotland, which will help accelerate investment in renewable energy such as offshore wind [Great British Energy Bill].”
For his part, Peter told Channel 4 News when asked about the Horizon Europe project, and the UK’s recent re-entry into it, “Luckily, we have a very resilient world-class scientific community in the UK. We have the Crick Institute, we have a university sector that’s very mature, and we have great partnerships between the private sector and public research institutions.”
In the same interview, when pushed on how universities will fare economically, Kyle responded, “It’s not just the economic settlement that is the issue. Now, the department I’m responsible for funds the research side of universities, and it’s crucial funding. We want to make sure we can make better use of the existing funding, so we’re moving away from one- to three-year funding programmes, to ten-year R&D programmes. It benefits the health of the nation, economic growth, and our priorities that we set out an industrial strategy.”
The new Government seeks to clarify national and international science policy while enhances the UK’s status in technological pursuits, while making it more accessible. In this regard, Peter Kyle will certainly have his work cut out. At present, he appears to be on top of his brief. However, the real test of any government, its departments and its individual leaders – Peter Kyle included – will be on the extent to which they deliver on their manifesto promises; a scantly adhered-to document in recent Parliaments.