Two peers with strong links to Oxfordshire and a controversial MP who lives in the county have been given jobs in Tony Blair's new Labour government.

The chairman of the Oxford Children's Hospital Campaign, Lord Drayson, has been appointed as a junior member of Tony Blair's new Government.

Former Witney MP Shaun Woodward has also been handed a job six years after he defected to Labour from the Conservatives.

The most controversial appointment of the reshuffle is, however, that of Andrew Adonis, another defector to Labour having once been a Social Democrat. He

has been given a peerage so that he can take up a job as a Junior Education Minister.

Lord Drayson has been a major Labour Party donor during the last few years.

As founder of Oxford company Powderject, he produced a revolutionary needle-free injection system, and won a £32m Government contract to supply smallpox vaccines.

But the deal, following the September 11 attacks, was controversial, as it was awarded to Dr Drayson without the normal competitive tender process to allow other potential manufacturers to bid for the work.

It also emerged that he had made a £50,000 donation to the Labour Party while the contract was under consideration, although subsequent investigations by the National Audit Office and Commons Public Accounts Committee found no wrong-doing.

Last year he made another £505,000 donation to Labour just six weeks after being appointed a life peer by Mr Blair.

Despite his controversial public image, multi-millionaire Dr Drayson has dedicated much of his time to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital.

He launched the £15m children's hospital appeal, and has made a substantial donation to the JR's new accident and emergency department, where the paediatric unit is named in his honour.

Trevor Campbell Davis, chief executive of the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, which oversees the JR, said: "We congratulate him on his appointment and wish him well in the post."

Mr Woodward, who still lives at his Sarsden estate near Chipping Norton, was one of the most controversial appointments in the new Government.

Labour MPs have suspected that he was on the lookout for a ministerial brief ever since he crossed the floor to join

Labour in 1999.

In the second part of his post-election reshuffle, Tony Blair

offered Mr Woodward, 46, the job of Junior Minister in the Northern Ireland Office.

Mr Woodward, a former director of communications for the Conservatives who masterminded John Major's 1992 election victory, was MP for the Tory

stronghold of Witney from May 1997 until June 2001.

Having defected to Labour half way through his first Parliamentary term, he was parachuted into the safe Labour seat of St Helens South for the

2001 general election.

Lord Adonis, 42, has been one the Prime Minister's closest

Downing Street advisers since 1997, providing much of the Government's direction on education.

That has included the introduction of city academies and tuition fees reform, both of which have been vilified by left wing Labour MPs.

Mr Adonis attended Kingham Hill School in Oxfordshire, studied at Keble College and Christ Church College, Oxford, and went on to serve on Oxford City Council.

Mr Blair initially wanted him to take the job of Schools Minister, as second in command to Education Secretary Ruth Kelly.

He was eventually appointed to the less senior position of Parliamentary Secretary, after Ms Kelly reportedly objected to the more prestigious appointment.