Baroness Ashton of Upholland swapped jobs with Lord Filkin in Prime Minister Tony Blair's reshuffle last week to become a junior minister in the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA).

Her responsibilities at the DCA will include the difficult brief of overseeing the operation of the family justice system, divorce reform and marriage law - the subject of a high-profile campaign by fathers' rights group Fathers 4 Justice.


She will also cover mental in-capacity, tribunals policy, freedom of information and data protection.


Baroness Ashton was a director of Business in the Community between 1983 and 1989, while from 1998 to 2001 she was chairman of East and North Hertfordshire Health Authority and later the new Hertfordshire Health Authority. She was awarded a life peerage in 1999.


Lord Filkin takes over the Baroness's previous role as junior minister at the Department for Education and Skills after just 15 months with the DCA.


Scottish solicitor and MP for Paisley South, Douglas Alexander, was appointed junior minister in the Department for Trade & Industry and the Foreign Office. However, he was axed from the Cabinet Office to make way for Alan Milburn's return as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the arrival of Ruth Kelly from the Treasury as Labour prepares for the next general election.


Meanwhile, the Conservatives have a new shadow secretary of state for constitutional affairs in Oliver Heald, who will be opposite Lord Falconer in a key year for the Lord Chancellor as he looks to make progress with his controversial constitutional reforms.


An employment law barrister practising on the south-eastern circuit, Mr Heald is MP for Hertfordshire North East and also shadow leader of the House of Commons.


He replaces non-lawyer Alan Duncan, who is the new shadow secretary of state for international development.


Solicitor Stephen O'Brien - a former assistant at City firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and group company secretary at building materials group Redland from 1988 to 1998 - retained his position as shadow secretary of state for industry.



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