Alexander in cost-cutting spotlight

Replacing Mr Laws as Chief Secretary for the Treasury will mean him taking up his second Cabinet post within the month, in the latest step on his extraordinary rise up the political ladder.

A virtual unknown outside Westminster, Mr Alexander's profile rose during the election campaign as Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg's chief of staff.

The Oxford graduate, 38, was Mr Clegg's campaign manager in his successful bid to lead the party in 2007 and had his own desk in the leader's office prior to his short-lived appointment as Scottish Secretary.

The MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey entered the Commons in 2005 and was immediately made a member of the work and pensions team.

He later became the party's work and pensions spokesman, then chief of staff and chairman of the manifesto group.

Mr Alexander, whose

second daughter was born

last week, lists his interests outside politics as hill-walking, fishing, cricket, golf, reading and travel.