Sajid Javid

Politician

Birthday December 5, 1969

Birth Sign Sagittarius

Birthplace Rochdale, Lancashire, England

Age 54 years old

#9792 Most Popular

1960

His family were farmers from the village of Rajana near Toba Tek Singh, Punjab, from where they migrated to the UK in the 1960s.

His father worked as a bus driver.

His mother did not speak English until she had been in the UK for ten years.

His family moved from Lancashire to Stapleton Road, Bristol, as his parents took over a shop there, and the family lived in a two-bedroom flat above it.

Javid is able to hold a conversation in broken Punjabi.

Despite having an Islamic upbringing, Javid no longer practises any religion.

However he still identifies as being a Muslim, claiming to be "the first Muslim Home Secretary to be invited" to an iftar party in the House of Commons.

As a teenager, Javid developed an interest in financial markets, following the Thatcher government's privatisations.

He says that, at the age of fourteen, he borrowed £500 from a bank to invest in shares and became a regular reader of the Financial Times.

1969

Sir Sajid Javid (born 5 December 1969) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from June 2021 to July 2022, having previously served as Home Secretary from 2018 to 2019 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2019 to 2020.

Sajid Javid was born on 5 December 1969 in Rochdale, Lancashire, one of five sons of Pakistani Punjabi immigrant parents.

1981

From 1981 to 1986, Javid attended Downend School, a state comprehensive near Bristol.

At school it was recommended that he should be a TV repairman.

Javid has said he was told that he could not study maths at O Level so he had to get his father to pay for it.

When he later witnessed a video showing an assault on a Syrian refugee, he remarked that it was reminiscent of bullying he had experienced at school; Javid said he faced racial abuse when younger, being called a 'Paki', and having faced abuse from "National Front skinheads".

1986

After being told by his school that he could only study two A Levels when he believed he needed three to go to university, Javid subsequently attended Filton Technical College from 1986 to 1988, and finally the University of Exeter from 1988 to 1991, completing a BA in economics and politics.

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

At university, he joined the Conservative Party.

1990

In 1990, aged 20, Javid attended the annual Conservative Party Conference for the first time and campaigned against the Thatcher government's decision that year to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).

He was handing out leaflets against the policy when he first met TV presenter Jeremy Paxman.

2010

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 May 2010.

Under the coalition government of David Cameron he was a Junior Treasury Minister before being promoted to Cameron's Cabinet as Culture Secretary, following Maria Miller's resignation.

2014

Speaking in 2014, Javid said that while at school: "I was naughty, more interested in watching Grange Hill than homework".

2015

Following 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.

2016

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.

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.

2019

Following 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.

2020

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, and was succeeded by Rishi Sunak.

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 U.K. government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which he supported an end to most generalised public health restrictions, such as face mask mandates until the emergence of the highly transmissible Deltacron hybrid variant from June 2021 until the end of March 2022, and he also expanded the COVID-19 vaccination programme in the United Kingdom.

Following Chris Pincher scandal, Javid resigned as Health Secretary on 5 July 2022, and was the first of 62 Conservative MPs to resign during the government and political crisis, which culminated in Johnson's own resignation.

He was succeeded by Steve Barclay.

Javid stood to replace Johnson in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election but withdrew from the race before he could be nominated, and subsequently returned to the backbenches.

In December 2022, Javid said that he would not stand for re-election at the next UK general election, due to be held in autumn 2024.