Theresa May made Sajid Javid the Home Secretary today after Amber Rudd finally bowed to massive pressure and quit for misleading parliament over deportation targets for illegal immigrants.
The Prime Minister promoted Mr Javid from Communities to replace Ms Rudd as she struggles to stabilise the government after the Windrush fiasco.
He becomes the first ethnic minority minister to hold the Great Office of State. James Brokenshire - who quit the Cabinet for health reasons earlier this year - is returning to take Mr Javid's old job.
Mr Javid was seen as having made a pitch for the Home Office job over the weekend when he used a newspaper interview to say of the Windrush scandal: 'It could have been me, my mum or my dad.'
As a Remainer in the referendum, his appointment also maintains the delicate balance between Eurosceptics and Europhiles in Mrs May's Brexit war Cabinet.
International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt will assume Ms Rudd's duties as equalities minister.
With no sign of the scandal blowing over and potentially more damning evidence to come out, Ms Rudd last night decided to take 'responsibility' and fall on her sword rather than face more humiliation.
'I feel it is necessary to do so because I inadvertently misled the Home Affairs Select Committee,' she said - admitting she 'should have been aware' the targets existed.
The dramatic departure was a huge blow for the Prime Minister - and potentially leaves her personally vulnerable.
Ms Rudd has acted as an lightning rod for her predecessor in the Home Office amid the outcry over Windrush.
It appears that Ms Rudd took the decision to quit herself, despite Downing Street previously trying to prop her up. She telephoned the PM to inform her of the move late on Sunday.
In her response to Ms Rudd, Mrs May said she was 'very sorry' to receive the resignation. The premier said she still believed Ms Rudd had answered questions from MPs in 'good faith'.
Tories expressed sadness at the departure - while opposition parties wasted no time in turning their fire on Mrs May.
Labour deputy leader Tom Watson said Ms Rudd was 'carrying the can' Mrs May, while shadow home secretary Diane Abbott insisted she must answer questions in the Commons about her own knowledge of migrant removal targets.
'We want to talk to her about the aspects of the so-called hostile environment which she was responsible for and led to the Windrush fiasco,' she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
The timing of the resignation took Westminster by surprise. There was intense speculation that Ms Rudd might go on Friday night after the emergence of a leaked Home Office memo that had been copied to the minister.
It spelled out that there were both national and regional targets for deportations of illegal immigrants - seemingly contradicting the evidence Ms Rudd gave to the Home Affairs select committee a day earlier.
She had referred to a wider 'ambition' of increasing deportations of illegal immigrants by 10 per cent, but denied there were specific numerical goals.
However, after hours of ominous silence from the Home Office, Ms Rudd broke cover to insist she would stay on.
She vowed she genuinely did not know about the targets when she gave evidence to MPs - and said she would make her case to the Commons in a statement tomorrow.
However having seen mounting evidence in the paperwork about the extent of the knowledge within the Home Office about the targets she decided that she should take responsibility and go.
It comes after another private letter which included 'ambitious and deliverable' migrant deportation targets emerged, after Rudd claimed she knew nothing about them.
Ms Rudd appeared to have signed the correspondence, which said her department aimed to 'increase the number of enforced removals by more than ten per cent', in January last year.
The Home Secretary had already claimed that she had never seen a previous memo referencing immigration targets - and the letter appears to have been the final straw.
In her letter of resignation, Ms Rudd said she was resigning because she had 'inadvertently' misled the Commons Home Affairs Committee.
'Since appearing before the select committee, I have reviewed the advice I was given on this issue and become aware of information provided to my office which makes mention of targets. I should have been aware of this and I take full responsibility for the fact that I was not,' she wrote.
She went on: 'The Windrush scandal has rightly shone a light on an important issue for our country. As so often, the instincts of the British people are right. They want people who have a right to live here to be treated fairly and humanely, which has sometimes not been the case.
'But they also want the Government to remove those who don't have the right to be here. I had hoped in coming months to devise a policy that would allow the Government to meet both these vital objectives - including bringing forward urgent legislation to ensure the right of the Windrush generation are protected.'
In her reply, Mrs May said she was 'very sorry' Ms Rudd had decided to stand down but that she understood her reasons for doing so.
'When you addressed the House of Commons and the Home Affairs Select Committee last week on the issue of illegal immigration, you answered the questions put to you in good faith,' she wrote.
The blunder by Ms Rudd - amid the raging Windrush row - led to Labour calls for her resignation and growing disquiet among her colleagues.
The former Home Office Secretary was already said to be feeling isolated by No10 and let down by her officials.
One ally said: 'Amber has been caught in a s*** sandwich. There has been no support from Downing Street, either politically or in terms of communications.
The six-page page memo from January last year, prepared by Hugh Ind, the director general of Immigration Enforcement in the Home Office, spelled out policy ideas outlined by Rudd in her private letter.
Included in the document, leaked to the Guardian, were targets such as 'achieving 12,800 enforced returns in 2017/18'.
The note was also addressed to Marc Owen, senior director of national and international operations in Immigration Enforcement, Mark Thomson, the director general of the Passport Office and Tony Eastaugh, UK director of operations at Immigration Enforcement.
Ms Rudd's departure risked upsetting the delicate balance within the Cabinet between Leavers and Remainers ahead of a crucial meeting of the Brexit 'war cabinet' on Wednesday to discuss Britain's future customs relationship with the EU.
But Mr Javid's background as a Remainer during the referendum should reassure Europhile MPs.
He was not previously a member of the crucial sub-committee.
Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said: 'Amber has done the right thing. The Windrush generation could not have had faith in her. She made promises she brushed under the carpet. It is a Home Office scandal.'
Ms Abbott told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour: 'Politics is very hard and the only sympathy goes to the generation of people who have been let down by this Government. We need justice.'
Labour MP David Lammy, a leading campaigner on Windrush, tweeted: 'Amber Rudd resigned because she didn't know what was going on in her own department and she had clearly lost the confidence of her own civil servants.
'The real issue is the hostile environment policy that caused this crisis in the first place.
'The resignation of the Home Secretary must not detract from the fact that this crisis was a direct result of the hostile environment policy.
'That policy must now be reviewed, and the Home Office must move quickly to compensate and grant citizenship to the Windrush generation.'
In a sign that Ms Rudd could join Remainer rebels on the Tory backbenches, former minister Anna Soubry said: 'V sorry that @AmberRuddHR has resigned. She is a woman of great courage & immense ability.
'Amber will be missed in many ways. We'll give her a huge welcome on to our back benches. If there is any justice she will soon return to the highest of office. Proud to call her my friend.'
Lucy Frazer, Tory MP for South East Cambridgeshire, added: 'I'm very disappointed she felt she had to resign. Amber was an excellent Minister. We were expecting her statement in the Commons tomorrow. She's put a number of measures in place for the Windrush generation.'
This article has been adapted from its original source.
