Sajid Javid has been appointed as home secretary, replacing Amber Rudd who resigned after repeatedly struggling to account for her role in the unjust treatment of Windrush-generation migrants.

Theresa May announced Javid’s appointment on Monday morning, installing the communities secretary to the Home Office where his first job will be to deal with the ongoing immigration debacle.

He is the first BAME politician to hold the role and his appointment could offer hope to critics that the government is aware of how damaging the issue has been for community relations and trust in the immigration system.

Profile Who is Sajid Javid? Show Hide The new home secretary is the first BAME holder of one of the great offices of state, a former investment banker and Margaret Thatcher devotee who is on the right of the Conservative party. His appointment will keep the balance of EU leavers and remainers in the top offices, but only just. Javid backed remain, but with some hesitation. Born in Rochdale in 1969, he is – like the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan – a Muslim son of a bus driver who has risen to the top of British politics. His parents were born in India, but fled to Pakistan. His father arrived in Britain in the 1960s – Javid has said he came with £1 in his pocket. After leaving banking for politics in 2010, the MP for Bromsgrove rose quickly, beginning as parliamentary private secretary to George Osborne before continuing as a protege of the former chancellor in junior roles at the Treasury. He got his first cabinet job in just his fourth year in parliament when he was appointed culture secretary in 2014, and was appointed business secretary after the 2015 election. After an abortive attempt with his friend Stephen Crabb to mount a bid for the leadership, where he would have been chancellor, he took the communities brief under Theresa May. His biggest challenge has been the Grenfell Tower disaster, where the government has faced criticism for stalling on promises to the victims’ families. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

James Brokenshire, the former Northern Ireland secretary and longtime May ally, who stood down in January to have a tumour removed from his lung, was moved to Javid’s former job as housing, communities and local government secretary.



The mini-reshuffle was completed by the international development secretary, Penny Mordaunt, taking on the additional role of minister for equalities, held by Rudd.

After the announcement, Javid said his “most urgent task” was to get to grips with the Windrush crisis, and ensure those affected “are all treated with the decency and the fairness they deserve”.

But speaking to BBC News, he declined to say whether this might bring an end to the so-called hostile environment immigration policy, or to targets for net removals.

“We’re going to have a strategy in place that does something the previous home secretary set out last week when she made a statement to parliament – to ensure that we have an immigration policy that is fair, it treats people with respect, and with decency,” he said.

“That will be one of my most urgent tasks, to make sure that we look carefully at the policy and make sure it achieves just that – fairness.”

The home secretary, whose parents emigrated from Pakistan in the 1960s, spoke at the weekend about his initial reaction to news of the treatment of Windrush-generation migrants. “I thought that could be my mum … my dad … my uncle … it could be me,” he said.

Javid, 48, said he recognised the scandal could cause concern among ethnic minority voters but issued a plea to those who were wavering to look at the government’s attempts to “put things right”.

Q&A What is the Windrush deportation crisis? Show Hide Who are the Windrush generation? They are people who arrived in the UK after the second world war from Caribbean countries at the invitation of the British government. The first group arrived on the ship MV Empire Windrush in June 1948. What happened to them? An estimated 50,000 people faced the risk of deportation if they had never formalised their residency status and did not have the required documentation to prove it. Why now? It stems from a policy, set out by Theresa May when she was home secretary, to make the UK 'a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants'. It requires employers, NHS staff, private landlords and other bodies to demand evidence of people’s citizenship or immigration status. Why do they not have the correct paperwork and status? Some children, often travelling on their parents’ passports, were never formally naturalised and many moved to the UK before the countries in which they were born became independent, so they assumed they were British. In some cases, they did not apply for passports. The Home Office did not keep a record of people entering the country and granted leave to remain, which was conferred on anyone living continuously in the country since before 1 January 1973. What did the government try and do to resolve the problem? A Home Office team was set up to ensure Commonwealth-born long-term UK residents would no longer find themselves classified as being in the UK illegally. But a month after one minister promised the cases would be resolved within two weeks, many remained destitute. In November 2018 home secretary Sajid Javid revealed that at least 11 Britons who had been wrongly deported had died. In April 2019 the government agreed to pay up to £200m in compensation. Photograph: Douglas Miller/Hulton Archive

The Home Office, one of the major offices of state, is a notoriously difficult department to run, with many secretaries having been forced to quit as a result of errors.

Dealing with the Windrush crisis, as well as the underlying problems around immigration, will be top of Javid’s inbox. However, tackling rising knife crime, fighting to justify policing cuts and handling the ongoing terrorism threat are all key issues.

UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) Sajid Javid MP @SajidJavid becomes Secretary of State for the @UKHomeOffice

In appointing Javid, May has attempted to maintain the delicate balance in her cabinet between remainers and Brexiters, which is particularly important because the home secretary sits on the Brexit “war cabinet”, which meets this week.

While Rudd was a clear advocate of staying in the European Union, within days of the referendum Javid, who had campaigned to remain, insisted the result must be respected. And while his predecessor was a strong voice around the cabinet table for staying in the customs union, the new home secretary has made clear he is sceptical of softer Brexit options.

Javid, like Rudd a George Osborne protege like Rudd, was previously a minister in the Treasury. His first cabinet appointment came in 2014 as culture secretary. The former investment banker has also served as business secretary.



His 18 months running the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has been dominated by the fallout from the fatal Grenfell Tower fire, and pressing for more house building despite resistance from the Treasury.







Rudd was forced to step down after a series of revelations in the Guardian about problems faced by Windrush-generation residents, which culminated in a leak on Friday that appeared to show she was aware of targets for removing people who were in the country illegally.

The pressure increased on Sunday afternoon as the Guardian revealed that in a leaked 2017 letter to May, Rudd had told the prime minister of her intention to increase deportations by 10% – seemingly at odds with her recent denials that she was aware of deportation targets.

Timeline Amber Rudd's apologies Show Hide The home secretary has issued five apologies in the last week – four of them over her department's handling of the Windrush crisis and immigration targets. Rudd delivered an unprecedented apology to parliament and acknowledged that her department had “lost sight of individuals” and become “too concerned with policy”. Rudd apologised for failing to grasp the scale of the problem. She told the home affairs select committee: “I bitterly, deeply regret that I didn’t see it as more than individual cases gone wrong that needed addressing. I didn’t see it as a systemic issue until very recently.” On Thursday morning, Rudd was forced to admit officials did have targets for removals, having previously denied their existence. “The immigration arm of the Home Office has been using local targets for internal performance management. These were not published targets against which performance was assessed, but if they were used inappropriately then I am clear that this will have to change." On Thursday afternoon, Rudd was forced to issue a hasty clarification after appearing to leave the door open to the UK staying in a customs union with the EU. “I should have been clearer – of course when we leave the EU we will be leaving the customs union." In a series of late-night tweets, Rudd apologised for not being aware of documents, leaked to the Guardian, which set out immigration removal targets.

‘I wasn’t aware of specific removal targets. I accept I should have been and I’m sorry that I wasn’t. I didn’t see the leaked document, although it was copied to my office as many documents are."

Rudd was facing a bruising appearance in the House of Commons on Monday, which government insiders suggested she was keen to avoid.

The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, said the replacement of Rudd would mean nothing unless the hostile environment policy on immigration was finally ended.



“Sajid Javid’s first priority must be ending this hostile environment policy. As the Windrush scandal has proven, and as some of us warned the government four years ago, this policy has ripped lives apart, including the lives of British nationals and others who have the right to be here.



“The new home secretary cannot form another human shield for Theresa May. The prime minister still has serious questions to answer about how this scandal was allowed to happen, and whether she knew Amber Rudd was misleading parliament and the public last week. It’s time Theresa May finally takes responsibility for the crisis she created.”

