Lord Sainsbury is to become an unpaid junior minister for the House of Lords in the Department for Trade and Industry.

BBC: New faces join government

Although the Penrose report pointed to failings at various regulators, like the Department for Trade and Industry and the Government Actuary's Department, it said the blame for the Equitable's problems lay principally with the society's management, who he accused of being the author of its downfall.

BBC: What happened to the Equitable?

The Lib Dems claim (they would, wouldn't they) that all this has been carefully costed and will be offset by painless savings elsewhere, made by, for instance, scrapping the Department of Trade and Industry.

ECONOMIST: Bagehot

When the Tories did set up advisory groups involving business people, for example at the Department of Trade and Industry, they tended to be lower-profile and to involve more junior executives.

ECONOMIST: The new establishment

The news for Luton is good: when the Department of Trade and Industry unveils a new map of depressed areas in February, it will include Luton.

ECONOMIST: Lugubrious Luton

If Mr Blair wants new female faces in his cabinet, an obvious choice is Patricia Hewitt , the energetic 52-year-old minister responsible for small business and e-commerce at the Department of Trade and Industry.

ECONOMIST: The queue for the cabinet

The Home Office's policy document, for example, makes no reference to the fact that the Department of Trade and Industry has just published its own draft bill on the interception of electronic communications.

ECONOMIST: A snooper��s charter

The Department of Trade and Industry says the practice misleads holidaymakers and prevents them from shopping around for cheaper deals.

BBC: News | Your Money | End of the road for insurance bonanza

Lord Jones is a former Director General of the Confederation of British Industry and was appointed by Gordon Brown as a trade ambassador in the Department for Business in 2007.

BBC: Lord Digby Jones says EU migration policies are 'mad'