Return of The Saj
Ex-Chancellor set for Cabinet role helping lead Britain’s recovery from the pandemic
SAJID Javid is preparing to make a Cabinet comeback to help lead the recovery from the pandemic.
Boris Johnson will reshuffle his top team as Britain gets ready to host a United Nations climate change conference later this year.
The Prime Minister has agreed to make Business Secretary Alok Sharma full-time president of the Cop26 summit, the Mail can reveal. Mr Javid, 51, who resigned as Chancellor last February following a clash with Boris Johnson’s then chief adviser Dominic Cummings, is in the running to replace Mr Sharma at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
It would mark a return to the department he used to run after five years away for Mr Javid, who was said by colleagues to refer to himself in the third person as The Saj, but he denies this.
The job would be sold as a key role in getting the economy firing on all cylinders again.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, whose International Development Secretary post disappeared when the foreign aid department was scrapped in September, has also been promised a Cabinet return.
She could replace Gavin Williamson as Education Secretary after he has faced a series of crises including last summer’s A-levels fiasco and the delayed reopening of schools this month. Mr Johnson may seek to keep him close by offering him another job.
The PM’s fiancée Carrie Symonds, who was an aide to Mr Javid during his time as Communities Secretary, is understood to want him back in the Cabinet. It has been rumoured that he could be made Foreign Secretary as Dominic Raab is believed to be open to a move to the Home Office. But supporters of current Home Secretary Priti Patel have that she would resist a shift to another role such as party chairman. She is also the only woman in one of the great offices of state. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who has been seen as at risk of the chop, is understood to be safe now.
Mr Johnson has declared that 2021 will be a ‘hugely important year’ for Britain on the world stage as it takes over the presidency of the G7 group of powerful industrial nations and hosts the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.
Mr Sharma was appointed to the dual role of Business Secretary and president of the conference last February after the sacking of former energy minister Claire O’Neill. But concerns have been voiced that he is overloaded. Former Energy Secretary Amber Rudd, who led the UK delegation to the 2015 UN climate change conference in Paris, has said it seemed ‘an impossible ask’ for him to do his Cabinet job and ‘put in the effort, the work, the thought, the corralling of different interests and to make Cop a success’.
Mr Johnson and Mr Sharma have talked recently about choosing one of the roles full-time. A source close to the Business Secretary said no decision has yet been made.
The Cop26 conference will be attended by world leaders in November – a year later than planned because of the pandemic.
‘Impossible for him to do both’