PAUL Murphy made history tonight after becoming the first Welsh Secretary to be given the job twice.

The Torfaen MP got the shock of his life at 4pm when Prime Minister Gordon Brown phoned him in his office to invite him to return to the Wales Office as Secretary of State.

"To say I was surprised is a considerable understatement," he told the Argus.

"It's been a surreal day."

Mr Murphy, 60, began Thursday chairing a meeting of the Intelligence and Security Committee which oversees the operations of Britain's spies, MI6, and the spycatchers MI5.

But the day ended when he found himself reinstalled in the cabinet to replace Peter Hain who resigned to fight to clear his name after the police were called him to investigate donations totalling £103,000 he received in his deputy leadership campaign.

Mr Murphy has been Welsh Secretary before, between 1999 and 2002. He is the first of the 15 politicians to have resided at the Welsh Office since Harold Wilson created it in 1964 to hold the job twice.

He said he regarded the challenges facing him in the Wales Office as "exciting", and promised to deliver the best services for people in Wales.

As well as being Welsh Secretary, Mr Murphy will chair two key cabinet committees, one dealing with information security - politically important because of the controversy over the loss of Government data - the other on local government and the regions.

Peter Hain's resignation meant that Jessica Morden, MP for Newport East, lost her job as his Parliamentary Private Secretary.

She told the Argus that it was "very sad" that Mr Hain had had to resign.

"He was one of the most hard-working people I have ever met," she said.