News / Sajid Javid
Sajid Javid’s Bristol roots
Newly appointed home secretary Sajid Javid may have been born in Rochdale, but he spent his formative years in Bristol.
The son of a Pakistani-born bus driver who arrived in the UK in 1961 with £1 in his pocket, Javid moved to Stapleton Road in Easton when he was four, after his parents took over a ladieswear shop there.
The family of seven lived in a two bed flat above the shop for 12 years. Javid and his youngest brother shared a bedroom with their parents, with the other three boys in the second bedroom.
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“It was a challenging area but it didn’t feel dangerous to me,” Javid told the Daily Mail in 2014. “I felt perfectly comfortable there. It felt like my home.”
Every Saturday, Javid’s mum Zubaid would take her sons to the local library, drilling into her children the importance of education.
Javid went to Downend School and later Filton Technical College, before studying economics and politics at Exeter University.
Javid still owns a house in Bristol, and was in the city on official business in 2015 when he visited the Engine Shed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5qCocoqQnQ
As secretary of state for communities and local government, it was Javid who in February gave the final go-ahead the Colston Hall was waiting for to fully prepare for their ambitious refurbishment project.
Javid also met his wife Laura in Bristol when they both worked at an insurance company in the city during the university holidays.
After university, Javid’s banking career took him to New York, where he was made a vice-president of Chase Manhattan Bank at just 25 and was later based in Singapore as head of private-equity businesses in Asia for Deutsche Bank.
He became MP for Bromsgrove in 2010, and was economic secretary and financial Secretary to the Treasury, before holding three ministerial positions in quick succession: secretary of state for culture, media and sport; secretary of state for business, innovation and skills; and secretary of state for housing, communities and local government.
He was named home secretary on Monday following the resignation of Amber Rudd amid the Windrush scandal.
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