Following Amber Rudd’s surprise resignation, Sajid Javid has been named the UK’s new home secretary.
Announced on Monday morning, Javid is the first home UK secretary that has come from an ethnic minority background.
After Theresa May’s announcement, Javid said that the most pressing task at hand was to get ahold of the Windrush crisis and ensure those affected “are all treated with the decency and the fairness they deserve”.
“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 told BBC News.
“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.”
Javid is replacing Rudd who resigned after she said she “inadvertently” misled MPs over deportation targets.
The new home secretary has previously expressed anger over Windrush scandal and how it has been handled by the government.
He told the Sunday Telegraph that the Windrush scandal felt “very personal” to him with Pakistani immigrant parents. “It could have been me, my mum or my dad”.
Dianne Abbott said of Javid’s new role: “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.”
This was not the only re-shuffle announced by Theresa May this morning. The former Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire is returning as the housing, communities and local government secretary. Penny Mordaunt, the International Development Secretary will take Rudd’s other role as the women’s and equalities minister.
