Vince Cable’s voting record in the House of Commons

Vince Cable was first elected to Parliament as MP for Twickenham in 1997. After losing his seat in 2015 he regained it in 2017 and later that year became the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Here are some of the key elements from his voting record whilst a Member of Parliament:

• In favour of Britain being in the European Union
• In favour of action on climate change
• Against the Iraq war
• Against a like-for-like replacement of Trident
• In favour of raising the income level at which people start paying income tax (a major priority for the Lib Dems in 2010-15, secured despite David Cameron’s opposition)
• In favour of higher taxes on banks
• In favour of legalising same-sex marriage (something brought about by Lynne Featherstone)
• In favour of gay rights more generally
• In favour of banning hunting
• In favour of bans on smoking
• Against ID cards
• And, unsurprisingly given he was a minister in the Coalition government, in favour of the polices in that coalition agreement. For more on what the Lib Dems secured from it see here, and there’s also this list of extreme Conservative policies that were blocked.

For more about Vince Cable’s views, see his piece on the origins of his political outlook and his autobiography, Free Radical.