My blunt and pessimistic take is that it's intended to give the government easy and full control over the sector (board is appointed by the minister) and that it's likely an excuse to cut funding.
If they said "we are gonna pump money into R&D to help that gap we know we have, and to keep track of all of this we are creating a new single responsible department" then I might be able to get behind it, but until proven otherwise this is likely an attempt to reduce funding.
Put another way, I don't know enough about it to know what I think, but given the track record of the government making this change I'm assuming they are doing it for the wrong reasons.