Sajid Javid

Early life

Javid was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, one of five sons of parents of Pakistani descent. His father was a bus driver. His family moved from Lancashire to Stapleton Road, Bristol.

Javid was educated from 1981 to 1986 at Downend School, a state comprehensive near Bristol, followed by Filton Technical College from 1986 to 1988, and finally the University of Exeter from 1988 to 1991. At Exeter he studied economics and politics and became a member of the Conservative Party.

When he was twenty, Javid attended his first Conservative Party Conference and campaigned against the Thatcher government's decision in that year to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), calling it a "fatal mistake".

Javid joined Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City immediately after university, working mostly in South America. Aged 25, he became the youngest vice-president in the history of the bank. He returned to London in 1997, and later joined Deutsche Bank as a director in 2000. In 2004 he became a managing director at Deutsche Bank and, one year later, global head of Emerging Markets Structuring.

In 2007 he relocated to Singapore as head of Deutsche Bank's credit trading, equity convertibles, commodities and private equity businesses in Asia, and was appointed a board member of Deutsche Bank International Limited. He left Deutsche Bank in 2009 to pursue a career in politics. His earnings at Deutsche Bank would have been roughly £3m a year at the time he left.

Javid is a trustee of the London Early Years Foundation, was a governor of Normand Croft Community School, and has led an expedition to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, to show his support of Help The Aged.

Member of Parliament

On 28 May 2009, the serving MP for Bromsgrove, Julie Kirkbride, announced that she would be standing down at the following general election in light of the expenses scandal; Kirkbride had represented Bromsgrove since 1997. Her resignation was confirmed in December 2009, after she attempted to withdraw it.

After a selection contest held by the Bromsgrove Conservative Association on 6 February 2010, in which he received over 70% of the votes cast by its members, Javid was announced as the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for the 2010 general election. In the election held on 6 May 2010, Javid received 22,558 votes, winning the seat by a majority of 11,308. In terms of the number of votes cast in the constituency, this was an increase on the majority of 10,080 at the previous general election, though was a reduction when compared both to the actual number of votes his predecessor had received (24,387) and to the Conservatives' percentage share of the vote (43.7% versus 51.0% in 2005).

According to former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, those MPs first elected in 2010 "are the best new MPs for over thirty years", and he identified Javid as one of six Conservative MPs that he believed had "already made an impact in the first term". Javid was also one of six new MPs profiled by the Financial Times, and was named the Newcomer of 2010 by the ConservativeHome website.

In an analysis of the 2010 intake of MPs by Westminster consultancy firm Guide Public Affairs, Guide to the Next Prime Minister, published in August 2011, Javid ranked third, and was the top-scoring Conservative. In October 2012, Iain Dale in The Daily Telegraph included Javid in his list of "Top 100 most influential figures from the Right". Dale wrote: "His fast rise up the greasy pole into George Osborne's inner circle is not only proof of this man's ambition but also his talent." Nicholas Watt in The Guardian has also suggested that Javid could rise to the top.

In The Times' 2014 right-wing power list, Javid moved up 18 places to number 8, with the article stating that he had emerged "as the senior member of the 2010 intake" and that if "the Tories want to jump a generation, then a Javid leadership candidacy would provide the opportunity." The 2014 GG2 Power List ranked Javid as the most influential British Asian and, at the accompanying GG2 Leadership Awards event on 5 November 2014, David Cameron described Javid as "the brilliant Asian man who I asked to join the Cabinet" and stated that "I want to hear that title 'Prime Minister' followed by a British Asian name."

A Conservative Home poll conducted in December 2014 marked Javid as the "Conservative to Watch in 2015". The responses to the survey were tested against a control panel supplied by YouGov, and Javid topped the poll, receiving 43% of the votes cast. In July 2014, Forbes magazine compared Sajid Javid to Barack Obama and suggested that Javid could become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Javid was briefly a member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee from June to November 2010, before relinquishing this position when he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to John Hayes, then Minister of State for Further Education at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Javid was one of the first new MPs to become a Parliamentary Private Secretary. On 14 October 2011, as part of a small reshuffle prompted by the resignation of Liam Fox as Defence Secretary, Javid was promoted to become Parliamentary Private Secretary to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. He remained in this position until 4 September 2012, when he joined Osborne's ministerial team as Economic Secretary to the Treasury. He was later promoted to Financial Secretary to the Treasury on 7 October 2013. On 1 March 2014, Javid was criticised for comments accusing Labour Leader Ed Miliband of having some responsibility for the crisis in Crimea, alleging that there was “a direct link” between Miliband’s refusal to support military intervention in Syria and the subsequent Russian activity in Ukraine.

Israel

At a Conservative Friends of Israel lunch in 2012, The Jewish Chronicle reported Javid as stating that "if he had to leave Britain to live in the Middle East, then he would choose Israel as home. Only there, he said, would his children feel the 'warm embrace of freedom and liberty'".

Culture Secretary

On 9 April 2014, Prime Minister David Cameron appointed Javid to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Minister for Equalities following the resignation of Maria Miller over her expenses. This made him the first MP to have been elected in 2010 to join the Cabinet, and the first British Pakistani MP to lead a Government Department. Shortly after his appointment, he was made a Privy Councillor.

Javid defended media freedom and the right of the press to investigate wrongdoing by politicians and officials in his first appearance as culture secretary on BBC's Question Time programme. "The public were right to judge her on how she responded, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that," he said. "And the media … I don't think you can blame this on Leveson or the media or something. The media are a cornerstone of our democracy, their freedom is very important and if they want to investigate wrongdoing by politicians or any other public official they should do that and nothing should stop them from doing that." It was reported in May 2015 that in March Javid had opposed plans by Theresa May to give Ofcom "counter-extremism powers" to vet British television programmes before they were broadcast. In a letter to David Cameron he commented that countries which had similar arrangements "are not known for their compliance with rights related to freedom of expression and the Government may not wish to be associated with such regimes".

His speech as Culture Secretary to the Union of Jewish Students' Annual Conference 2014 about the importance of diversity and free expression in the world of culture has been hailed by Isabel Hardman of The Spectator as "one of the finest speeches from a government minister I have ever read."

Business Secretary

Following the 2015 general election, Javid was appointed as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the new Conservative majority government under Prime Minister David Cameron. He was, at this time, described as "the most robust right-winger in the cabinet", a "true Thatcherite".

After being appointed Business Secretary, Javid said that there would be "significant changes" to strike laws under the new Conservative government, announcing that strikes affecting essential public services will need the backing of 40% of eligible union members under government plans.

Javid was a supporter of remaining in the European Union, although he described himself as a Eurosceptic with "no time for ever-closer union".

In February 2017, it was revealed in court that Javid had ignored the advice of a senior civil servant in order to keep granting export licenses for weapons to Saudi Arabia, despite allegations of war crimes in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. A February 2016 email from Edward Bell, head of the Export Control Organisation, was read out as part of a judicial review into British arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The email said: "To be honest, and I was very direct and honest with [Sajid Javid], my gut tells me we should suspend [weapon exports to Saudi Arabia]". In a later email, he said: "[Sajid Javid] decided not to take a decision about this last night and the matter has now been raised with [the prime minister]".

Stephen Crabb's leadership bid

In June 2016, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Stephen Crabb, announced that he would be standing in the 2016 Conservative leadership election, following David Cameron's resignation after the result of the EU referendum. He announced that he would be standing on a "joint ticket" with Javid, with Crabb becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Javid becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, if Crabb won.

Awards

In January 2015, Javid was awarded the Politician of the Year award at the British Muslim Awards.

Personal life

Javid lives with his wife Laura and their four children. He has previously said that his family's heritage is Muslim, but that he does not practise any religion, although he believes that "we should recognise that Christianity is the religion of our country".