Sajid Javid, English banker and politician, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Sajid Javid (; born 5 December 1969) is a British politician who has been Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since June 2021. He was Home Secretary from 2018 to 2019 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2019 to 2020. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been Member of Parliament for Bromsgrove since 2010.
Born in Rochdale, Lancashire, to a British Pakistani family, Javid was raised largely in Bristol. He studied Economics and Politics at the University of Exeter, where he joined the Conservative Party. Working in banking, he rose to become a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank. He was elected to the House of Commons in 2010. Under the coalition government of David Cameron he was a Junior Treasury Minister before being promoted to Cameron's Cabinet as Culture Secretary in the 2014 cabinet reshuffle. After the 2015 general election, Cameron promoted Javid to Business Secretary. Javid was a prominent supporter of the unsuccessful Britain Stronger in Europe campaign for the UK to remain in the European Union. Following the 2016 referendum vote to leave the European Union, he went on to serve under Cameron's successor Prime Minister Theresa May, as Communities Secretary from 2016 to 2018. When Amber Rudd resigned as a result of the Windrush scandal in 2018, Javid was appointed as her successor as Home Secretary, becoming the first British Asian to hold one of the great offices of state.
After May's resignation, Javid stood for election as leader of the Conservative Party in the 2019 leadership contest, finishing in fourth place. The successful candidate, Boris Johnson, appointed him Chancellor of the Exchequer in his first Cabinet. Javid resigned as Chancellor during the February 2020 cabinet reshuffle after refusing a demand from Johnson and his chief adviser Dominic Cummings that he dismiss his advisers. In June 2021, following the resignation of Matt Hancock, he was reappointed to Johnson's cabinet as Health Secretary. This made him a prominent figure in the British government response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. He supported an end to most generalised public health restrictions such as face mask mandates until emergence of the Omicron variant in November 2021, and expanded the vaccination programme.