The Liberal Democrats have announced a reshuffle of key posts.

Party leader Charles Kennedy followed the government's day of changes with the announcement of a re-organisation of his parliamentary ranks.

He has split responsibilities for the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs between Norman Baker, who will deal with environmental matters, and Andrew George who takes over rural affairs and food.

Baker has proved to be an effective campaigner on sleaze and played a key role in the downfall of Peter Mandelson.

Don Foster will now focus purely on transport and Edward Davey will take on the role of shadowing the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister with responsibility for local government and the regions.

Mark Oaten has been unanimously re-elected as chairman of the parliamentary party.

David Laws will cover Treasury policy and Sandra Gidley is promoted to chair the party's gender balance task force to promote more women candidates.

The problem of increasing the party's number of women MPs is highlighted by the fact that the new team of 29 MPs and peers contains just three women.

Kennedy was keen to highlight that his team, which retains the "big hitters" in their current posts, included people who had already proved themselves.

"Ed Davey has proved himself at both constituency and national level to be a most able politician and fully deserves his promotion," he said.

"Norman Baker, who first worked at Westminster as an environment researcher, is an established campaigner and I can think of no one better to lift the environmental profile and take the green agenda of the party forward."