Tony Blair's reshuffle has seen existing junior ministers swapping positions and two MPs who previously resigned their posts brought back into government.

Having spent much of the last 72 hours working on the details, the prime minister's government shake-up was released to the media in chaotic fashion on Monday evening.

The changes see former Home Office minister Beverley Hughes return to the frontbenches as children's minister.

Hughes was forced to resign last year amid a row over her handling of visa policy.

Lord Hunt, a former health minister who resigned over the Iraq war, also makes a return as a junior minister in the Department for Work and Pensions.

The decision to bring back two former ministers comes just days after the Conservatives mocked the prime minister's "recycling" of other former ministers such as David Blunkett.

New ministers

The most controversial appointment will be the decision to promote Number 10 adviser Andrew Adonis to the Lords, where he will take up the post of junior education minister.

Lord Adonis, as he will become, has been an influential backer of many of the education polices which have caused unease on the Labour benches.

However, the decision may be interpreted as a sign that the prime minister is determined to push through radical public service reforms during his remaining time in office.

Close attention will also be paid to the decision to appoint pharmaceuticals tycoon Lord Drayson - who has made a series of large donations to Labour - as a junior minister in the Ministry of Defence.

Elsewhere, Shaun Woodward, who defected to Labour from the Conservatives before the 2001 general election, enters government for the first time.

He takes up a junior post in the Northern Ireland Office, where he will work under newly appointed secretary of state Peter Hain.

However, none of the MPs elected for the first time last week will be entering the government.

That means that Ed Balls, the high profile former adviser to Gordon Brown, will not take up his first ministerial post.

Neither was there a return for John Denham, the respected Labour MP who also resigned from the government over the Iraq war.

But up and coming MPs Clare Ward and Parmjit Dhanda take their first promotions, becoming junior whips.

Trading places

Elsewhere, the ministerial changes see former children's minister Margaret Hodge move to become minister for work.

Mike O'Brien leaves the Foreign Office to take over as solicitor general, while Harriet Harman vacates that post to move across to the the Department of Constitutional Affairs as minister of state.

Stephen Timms leave the Treasury to take on the sensitive role of minister for pensions. He replaces Malcolm Wicks, who becomes energy minister.

John Healey is promoted from economic secretary to replace Timms as financial secretary in the chancellor's department.

Former skills minister Ivan Lewis takes Healey's previous post.

Yvette Cooper moves up within the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, where she becomes minister for housing and planning.

The former housing minister, Keith Hill, will now take on the role of parliamentary private secretary to the prime minister.

And the previous holder of that post, David Hanson, becomes minister of state at the Northern Ireland Office.

Former deputy leader of the Commons Phil Woolas becomes minister for local government. Nigel Griffiths takes Woolas's former position, where he will now serve under Geoff Hoon.