What you need to know about Jo Swinson’s voting record
by Ian Sinclair
2 November 2019
Over the coming weeks of the general election campaign Jo Swinson, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, will make many promises. Therefore, it is important to see what her voting record has been in parliament.
The key take away is Swinson, as part of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government between 2010 and 2015, played a central role in implementing austerity – a set of policies linked to 120,000 excess deaths in England, according to a studied published in the peer-reviewed journal BMJ in 2017, and 130,000 preventable deaths, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research in 2019. “In terms of her voting record, Swinson is no different on paper from the Conservative ministers of the time”, the New Statesman’s Anoosh Chakelian noted in July 2019.
- Between 2009 and 2011 Swinson “generally voted for the privatisation of Royal Mail”
- Instead of scrapping fees, as the Lib Dems promised in the 2010 general election campaign, in December 2010 Swinson voted in support of trebling of university costs to £9,000 a year.
- In January 2011 Swinson voted in favour of scrapping the education maintenance allowance (EMA) in England.
- In 2011 Swinson voted for UK military action in Libya, a NATO-led intervention, the result of which was “political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa”, according to a 2016 House of Commons report.
- Swinson “almost always voted for academy schools”.
- In 2011 Swinson “consistently voted for selling England’s state owned forests”.
- Between 2011 and 2012 Swinson “consistently voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability”.
- Swinson supported the Coalition Government’s Workfare programme, the scheme in which people on Jobseekers Allowance are forced to carry out unpaid work in order to keep receiving their benefits.
- In 2013 Swinson “consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices”.
- Between 2012 and 2013 Swinson “consistently voted against slowing the rise in rail fares”.
- In December 2014 Swinson voted in favour of housing benefit penalties for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (AKA the Bedroom Tax).
- Between 2011 and 2014 Swinson “generally voted for restricting the scope of legal aid”.
- Between 2010 and 2015 Swinson “almost always voted for reducing the rate of corporation tax”.
- Between 2011 and 2015 Swinson “generally voted against a banker’s bonus tax”.
- Between 2012 and 2015 Swinson “consistently voted against increasing the tax rate applied to income over £150,000”.
- In 2015 Swinson “generally voted against greater regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract shale gas”.
- Between 2011 and 2018 Swinson “generally voted against financial incentives for low carbon emission electricity generation methods”.
- Between 2010 and 2019 “Swinson “generally voted for reducing central government funding of local government”.
‘Can you vote for Jo Swinson if you oppose austerity?’, was the title to Chakelian’s article. Surely this should read ‘Can you vote for Jo Swinson if you have an ounce of humanity?’