Prime Minister appoints Sajid Javid & Anna Soubry as new Business Ministers

Sajid Javid

Lancashire born Javid is one of five sons to a bus driver of Pakistani descent and grew up in Bristol and educated at a local state comprehensive school and later the University of Exeter.

Javid joined Chase Manhattan Bank in New York immediately out of university, working mostly in South America.

Aged 25, he became the youngest vice-president in the history of the bank. He returned to London in 1997, and later joined Deutsche Bank as a director in 2000. In 2004 he became a managing director at Deutsche Bank and, one year later, global head of Emerging Markets Structuring.

In 2007 he relocated to Singapore as head of Deutsche Bank’s credit trading, equity convertibles, commodities and private equity businesses in Asia, and was appointed a board member of Deutsche Bank International Limited. He left Deutsche Bank in 2009 to pursue a career in politics. His earnings at Deutsche Bank would have been roughly £3m a year at the time he left.

Elected in 2010, Javid became the first British Pakistani Conservative MP and according to former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Javid was one of “the best new MPs for over thirty years”, and he identified Javid as one of six Conservative MPs that he believed “(had) already made an impact in the first term”.

Javid was also one of six new MPs profiled by the Financial Times, and was named the Newcomer of 2010 by the ConservativeHome website.

In 2014 was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Minister for Equalities following the resignation of Maria Miller over her expenses. This made him the first MP to have been elected in 2010 to join the Cabinet, and the first British Pakistani MP to lead a Government Department. Shortly after his appointment, he was made a Privy Councillor.

Whilst Javid has no direct small business experience like Stephen Metcalfe, the reelected MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, who ran an Essex based print company until entering Parliament in 2010 his CV does precede him and is used to big business and he will be supported by Anna Soubry, the dedicated small business minister as in previous administrations.

Soubry, Elected MP for Broxtowe in 2010 is a former regional television presenter and a barrister, joined the government as a health minister in 2012.

What distinguishes her most from other ambitious colleagues is her outspokenness, brave or reckless according to taste. She once took on Nigel Farage on Question Time with a ferocity that impressed colleagues, but later prompted slightly different reactions when she said that Farage looked like “somebody has put their finger up his bottom and he really rather likes it”.

She also complained in an interview that she was made public health minister because David Cameron had stereotypically decided that that portfolio was a “soft, girly option” appropriate for a woman. Cameron responded by making her a defence minister where she prospered, perhaps because the MoD is a place where bluntness goes down well.

Speaking about the appointment John Cridland, CBI Director-General, said: “We congratulate Sajid on his appointment as Business Secretary. He was an excellent Treasury Minister and will be a strong voice for the business community, helping to make its voice heard loud and clear at the Cabinet table.

“We want to encourage more companies, especially Britain’s forgotten army of medium-sized businesses, to boost exports and investment, to drive growth and create jobs up and down the country. We look forward to working with Sajid to achieve this.

“As an immediate step, we want the Government to set out a clear business plan for its first 100 days, including getting the deficit down, finding new ways to deliver public services and committing to the Airports Commission’s final decision this summer. We also need policies to bolster our supply chains, and make the UK the destination of choice for manufacturing high-value products.”