Clegg finalises Lib Dem reshuffle

12 April 2012

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has put the finishing touches to his frontbench team by announcing his full list of junior spokesmen and women

The Commons' youngest MP Jo Swinson, 27, will move to the high profile foreign affairs brief from her previous post as women and equalities spokeswoman as part of the reshuffle.

She is one of five women in the list of 22 frontbenchers named in what Mr Clegg called a "strong team".

Teignmouth MP Richard Younger-Ross loses his front bench role as a culture spokesman, with Mr Clegg not appointing junior spokespeople to cover that department or the international affairs brief.

Jenny Willott will take her place on the frontbench as part of the justice team in addition to her role as deputy chief whip.

The 22 "shadow ministers" will assist Mr Clegg's senior frontbench team, which expanded from 22 under Sir Menzies Campbell to 30 now.

The party's newest MP Willie Rennie will continue to carry out his duties as junior defence spokesman in addition to his role as Mr Clegg's chair of parliamentary campaigns.

Mr Clegg said: "I am delighted to complete my reshuffle. This is a very strong team and I am looking forward to working with them to take the Liberal Democrat message to the country."

Of the party's 63 MPs, 12 now have no post within the party - although three of those chair influential all-party select committees of MPs.

There are no new roles for Andrew Stunell, who took the communities and local government portfolio under Sir Menzies, and Paul Holmes, who attended shadow cabinet as housing spokesman, who were sacked as senior spokesmen last month.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in