Kevin Curran, the new head of the GMB union, will today call for the Department of Trade and Industry to be split up.

Speaking at the union's annual conference in Blackpool, he will call for the department to be replaced by two ministries, each with its own Cabinet minister. One would handle the DTI's current job as a regulator, leaving the other free to grapple with "innovation", which would include a new strategy for manufacturing.

In his farewell speech as leader yesterday, John Edmonds attacked New Labour and revealed he turned down a peerage following Labour's 1997 general election victory. He called on unions to "reclaim" the Labour Party.