Lucy Frazer Replaces Michelle Donelan As UK Culture Secretary

The UK has another new Culture Secretary.

Lucy Frazer, the Minister for Levelling Up, will replace Michelle Donelan, who has spent less than six months in the job. Frazer is the 12th Culture Secretary in 13 years.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also slimmed down the duties of the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS).

He has removed the department’s responsibility for technology and created the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology.

10 Downing Street said the DCMS will focus on the “importance of culture, media and sport to [the] economy and build on [the] UK’s position as a global leader in the creative arts.”

Donelan had a short but influential tenure and will be remembered for junking plans to sell Channel 4, the UK commercial broadcaster owned by the government.

Read: Deadline’s deep dive on the doomed Channel 4 sale.

Frazer has held ministerial posts since 2019, but Culture Secretary will be her most senior government role to date. The 50-year-old has been a Conservative MP since 2015.

She will lead on the government’s approach to the BBC and other broadcasters. Ministers are planning to launch a review of the license fee, the BBC’s funding mechanism, and Frazer will oversee reforms of Channel 4, which will be allowed to make its own shows for the first time.

Frazer has expressed little or no interest in the UK’s creative industries publicly. One of her few interventions came in 2021 when, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury, she heralded the success of UK’s high-end tax breaks.

“The corporate film tax relief has proved very successful at attracting inward investment. It is highly popular with film-makers, and has contributed to making the UK a top film-making destination,” she said.