HOUSING CRISIS

Sajid Javid goes to war with nimbys and land bankers

The housing secretary says that he is on the side of those who want homes
Sajid Javid condemned land hoarding by developers waiting for price rises
Sajid Javid condemned land hoarding by developers waiting for price rises
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE

Sajid Javid grew up above a shop in Bristol with two bedrooms for the family of seven. “I shared a room with my parents; there were two double beds, I was with one of my siblings, and there were two double beds in the other room,” he says. When he became an MP he was told he would have been classed as homeless. “I said, ‘That’s news to me as it felt like a perfectly loving home.’ That was the first time I properly started thinking about housing.”

Now as housing secretary he thinks about it “obsessively”. He is not worried about his own home; his four children all have their own bedroom. “I have a mortgage like most people but I consider myself fortunate