Michelle Donelan

 ( Official Website ) 

Donelan was educated at The County High School, Leftwich, a state school, before graduating from the University of York with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and politics. While at university, she was involved in York Student Television.

Donelan's career outside politics was in marketing, including a time working on Marie Claire magazine and for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

She was then selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Chippenham in February 2013. 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.

Donelan served on the Education Select Committee between 2015 and 2018.

Before the 2016 referendum, Donelan supported the UK remaining within the European Union.

Donelan was re-elected as MP for Chippenham at the snap 2017 United Kingdom general election with 54.7% of the vote and a majority of 16,630.

At the 2019 general election, Donelan was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 54.3% and a decreased majority of 11,288.

In the February 2020 cabinet reshuffle, she became Minister of State for Universities. , her responsibilities included universities and co-chairing the Family Justice Board, which oversees the performance of the Family Division system and is advised by the Family Justice Council.

In the 2021 cabinet reshuffle, her role was renamed Minister of State for Higher and Further Education, with the added right to attend cabinet. She was also sworn into the Privy Council.

During her tenure in the Department for Education, she campaigned for freedom of speech in Universities.

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". 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. Following reports she would receive severance pay at Secretary of State level despite her short tenure, Donelan refused this payment.

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." In the same month, Donelan cancelled a plan to privatise Channel 4 that had been announced by Nadine Dorries under Boris Johnson's premiership.

It was announced on 21 April 2023 that during her maternity leave, Donelan would be temporarily replaced as Secretary of State by Chloe Smith. She returned to her ministerial role on Thursday 20 July 2023 after three months of ministerial maternity leave.

Donelan's portfolio in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology included the controversial Online Safety Act 2023. Under her leadership, the measure was amended and completed its passage through both Houses of Parliament.

In April 2023, following the release of the GPT-4 large 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.

Donelan announced in November that the taskforce would become the AI Safety Institute. 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. 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.