Sajid Javid
becomes new
Home Secretary
30 April 2018
Sajid Javid has been named as the new Home Secretary after Amber Rudd’s resignation.
Ms Rudd resigned last night admitting that she had ‘inadvertently misled’ MPs over what she knew about immigration targets.
In her letter to PM Theresa May she said: ‘I had hoped in coming months to devise a policy… bringing forward urgent legislation to ensure the rights of the Windrush generation are protected. The task force is working well, the residence cards are being issued well within the two weeks promised, and the design of the compensation scheme is making good progress.’
The Prime Minister responded: ‘The Home Office has been working to enforce a firm but fair immigration policy – working to increase the number of illegal migrants we remove, while ensuring that we continue to recognise the huge contribution of everyone who has come to the UK legally, and remain open to the brightest and best from across the globe.’
Javid is a former investment banker and the Conservative MP for Bromsgrove. The son of a bus driver whose family came to the UK from Pakistan in the 1960s, he has called himself a ‘reluctant Remainer’ and is the first male Home Secretary since 2010 and the first British Asian to hold a Great Office of State.
Despite a record of voting for stronger enforcement of immigration rules and for a stricter asylum system*, it is hoped that Javid will take a more sympathetic approach towards changing the policy of the ‘hostile environment’, which has had a negative impact on legal migrants.
Speaking about the Windrush scandal, Javid previously said: ‘I was really concerned about some of the issues. I’m a second generation migrant. My parents came to this country from Pakistan, just like the Windrush generation. They came to rebuild it after the Second World War. They were asked to come in to do work that some people would describe as unattractive – my dad worked in a cotton mill, he worked as a bus driver.
‘When I heard about Windrush I thought, ‘that could be my mum, my dad, my uncle… that could be me.’
*Information taken from theyworkforyou.com
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