» Savid Javid: A return to the top table
THE appointment of Sajid Javid, who grew up in Bristol, as Health Secretary sees him return to a Cabinet he abruptly left in shock fashion some 16 months ago.
He was just six months into his role as chancellor, and less than a month away from delivering his first Budget, when he quit after being told he must sack all his advisers if he wanted to keep his job.
His departure in February last year came after a bruising Whitehall power struggle with Boris Johnson’s then chief adviser Dominic Cummings.
But in a reversal of fortunes it is Mr Javid who returns to Boris Johnson’s top team, while Mr Cummings hurls criticism from outside Government.
Carrie Symonds, the Prime Minister’s wife, who previously clashed with Mr Cummings, was once a special adviser to Mr Javid during his tenure as communities secretary.
Mr Javid’s previous showdown with Boris Johnson reached a climax when he refused to dismiss his team of aides and replace them with a joint No 10/No 11 unit.
In a Commons statement, Mr Javid said chancellors had to be able to “speak truth to power” and “the arrangement proposed would significantly inhibit that, and it would not have been in the national interest”.
He also took a swipe at Mr Cummings, who has been blasting the Government’s pandemic performance since leaving No 10.
Tension between No 10 and No 11 simmered after Mr Javid’s adviser, Sonia Khan, was escorted out of Downing Street by police after being sacked by Mr Cummings in August 2019.
Appointed in July 2019 to Mr Johnson’s first Cabinet, Mr Javid’s planned Budget in November that year was cancelled as the Prime Minister sought a snap election.
Mr Javid, the first British Asian to hold one of the great offices of state, did not last long enough in the role to be able to deliver the parliamentary set-piece scheduled for the following March.
He was the shortest-serving chancellor since Iain Macleod, who died shortly after taking office in 1970, according to the Institute for Government.
Mr Javid returns to the Cabinet to help lead the pandemic response at a crucial time, as efforts focus on suppressing a rise in coronavirus cases ahead of the planned easing of restrictions next month.
Before his appointment this month, Mr Javid said he would be introducing a private member’s Bill to raise the minimum age for marriage to 18, to protect vulnerable teenagers from religious and cultural pressures to marry too young.
Mr Javid is the son of a bus driver, who arrived in England from Pakistan in the 1960s with just a pound in his pocket. To colleagues, he is The Saj.
He was a tough-talking home secretary, whose hard stance on jihadi bride Shamima Begum’s pleas to be allowed back in the UK boosted his popularity among some Tories, but horrified others – particularly after Ms Begum’s newborn son later died in a Syrian refugee camp.
Mr Javid made it to the final four in the race to replace Theresa May as Tory leader in 2019, but dropped out and subsequently endorsed Mr Johnson.
Born in Rochdale, Mr Javid was raised in a two-bed flat above a shop in Bristol with four brothers. His brother Bas went into the police, serving as Commander of Solihull Police division and was later promoted as Commander at Scotland Yard, in charge of frontline policing. He had previously served in the Royal Navy, wherein his military service included the Gulf War – he received a commendation for teamwork and bravery.
Mr Javid’s eldest brother Tariq was a successful businessman and managed a supermarket chain but died in July 2018.
His other siblings are Khalid, a financial adviser, and Atif, a multimillionaire property tycoon.
Mr Javid spent his school years on Stapleton Road and as home secretary he would make much of the Sunday People’s description of the address as “Britain’s worst street”, a label rejected by its present-day residents.
He went to a state school and after studying economics and politics at the University of Exeter, around which time he met his wife, Laura, with whom he now has four children, he set his sights on a job in the City working in the financial markets.
He left behind a career in finance and became MP for Bromsgrove in 2010.
According to his website, Mr Javid was a vice president at the US bank Chase Manhattan at the age of 25 and later moved to Deutsche Bank, rising to senior managing director before he left in 2009.
He held roles in the Treasury from 2012 until he was made culture secretary in April 2014, later going on to become business secretary in May 2015 and housing secretary in July 2016.
After being made home secretary in April 2018, Mr Javid talked openly about how he experienced racism at an early age. When asked if safe drug consumption rooms, where people with drug addictions are allowed to take them under medical supervision, should be introduced, he said: “I didn’t take any drugs [in my youth] and part of the reason is I grew up on a street in Bristol that became the centre of the local drugs trade.
“When I walked out of my door every day – when I walked back from school or at the weekend to see family or friends – I saw the impact of drugs growing up. That’s what put me off drugs and I think that’s probably true of most of the population.”
He previously said he grew up on what “one tabloid dubbed Britain’s most dangerous street”.
He added: “It’s not so difficult to see how, instead of being in the cabinet, I could have actually turned out to have a life of crime myself.”