Lazarowicz handed debut on frontbench by Miliband

Mr Lazarowicz has been appointed deputy to Shadow International Development Secretary Harriet Harman, working along with new MP Rushanara Ali, elected at the general election in May.

And the three of them will take centre stage in the Commons for International Development Questions tomorrow morning.

Mr Lazarowicz, who supported Ed Miliband in the leadership contest, said he was "pleasantly surprised" to be given his first frontbench role after nine years at Westminster.

Overseas development has long been one of his interests and he has served as vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on debt, trade and aid.

He said: "Under the last government, Britain was recognised as one of the leading countries supporting international development and we intend to hold this new government to account and make sure they don't fall back from the objectives we set and they have said they will continue."

Mr Lazarowicz served as a councillor in Edinburgh from 1980 to 1996, and then from 1999 to 2001 and was council leader from 1986 to 1993.

He has been MP for Edinburgh North & Leith since 2001 when Malcolm Chisholm stood down to concentrate on his role as the constituency's MSP.

In October 2008, Gordon Brown appointed Mr Lazarowicz as the Prime Minister's Special Representative on Global Carbon Markets and his report on the issue, Global Carbon Trading: a framework for reducing emissions, was published in July 2009.

The role brought him into a close working relationship with Ed Miliband, who was then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

Mr Lazarowicz has succeeded in having two Private Member's Bills passed during his time at Westminster. In 2002, he piloted the Employee Share Schemes Bill through parliament and in 2006 the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill was also passed.

It forced the Government to conduct annual audits of moves to cut climate change and required it to take steps to encourage the micro-generation of electricity, cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.

Also in Mr Miliband's shadow team is Midlothian MP David Hamilton, who has been made an assistant whip.

First elected in 2001, he increased his majority by over 3,000 at the last election and was one of Ed Miliband's Scottish supporters in the Labour leadership election.

Mr Miliband will have an experienced Scottish MP as one of his closest aides. Stirling MP Anne McGuire has been appointed as his parliamentary private secretary alongside newly-elected London MP Chuka Umunna. Ms McGuire served as PPS to Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar after Labour's landslide election victory in 1997.