Joanne Kate Swinson (born 5 February 1980) is a Scottish former politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from July to December 2019. Swinson was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Dunbartonshire from 2005 to 2015 and 2017 to 2019. In September 2020, Swinson became Director of Partners for a New Economy (P4NE).
Born in Glasgow, Swinson studied at the London School of Economics and briefly worked in public relations before being elected to the House of Commons aged 25, becoming the youngest MP at the time. She was a Liberal Democrat Spokesperson covering various portfolios, including Scotland, Women and Equalities, Communities and Local Government, and Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
In 2010, after the Liberal Democrats entered into a coalition government with the Conservative Party, Swinson became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, and was later appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs. She lost her seat in the 2015 election, but regained it in the snap election held two years later. Shortly after returning to Parliament, she was elected unopposed as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats. In July 2019, following the retirement of Vince Cable, Swinson defeated Ed Davey in the leadership election.
Swinson led her party through the 2019 general election, suggesting she could lead a Liberal Democrat majority government that would revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit. Instead, the Liberal Democrats sustained a net loss in seats, including Swinson's own to Scottish National Party candidate Amy Callaghan. Swinson's unseating disqualified her from continuing as party leader — she is the only leader of the modern Liberal Democrats to have been disqualified this way. At less than five months, her tenure as leader is the shortest in the party's history, and she was succeeded by Davey.
Early life and education Swinson was born in Glasgow on 5 February 1980, the daughter of Peter and Annette Swinson."Swinson, Jo", Who's Who (online ed., Oxford University Press, December 2018). Retrieved 31 October 2019. She was educated at Douglas Academy, a mixed state school in the town of Milngavie in East Dunbartonshire in western Scotland, followed by the London School of Economics (LSE), where she studied Management, gaining a first-class Bachelor of Science degree in 2000. She signed up as an active member of the Liberal Democrats at the age of 17.
Early career After graduating from the LSE, Swinson moved to Yorkshire and worked for Ace Visual and Sound Systems in Thorne, before becoming a marketing and public relations manager for Hull-based commercial radio station Viking FM from December 2000, and media company Space and People.
At the age of 21, Swinson stood unsuccessfully in the Kingston upon Hull East constituency in the 2001 general election, but gained a 6% swing from John Prescott, then the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In 2003, she unsuccessfully contested the Strathkelvin and Bearsden constituency in the Scottish Parliament election, finishing third with 14% of the vote.
Member of Parliament (2005–2015) Swinson was elected to the House of Commons as the MP for East Dunbartonshire at the 2005 general election. She defeated John Lyons of Labour by 4,061 votes, and was the first ever Member of Parliament born in the 1980s. As the youngest MP she replaced fellow Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather as the "Baby of the House". This lasted until 2009, when Conservative MP Chloe Smith was elected at the Norwich North by-election.
Swinson was vocal in her opposition to the Iraq War and the Labour government's proposals for national identity cards. She has supported measures both by individuals and government to tackle climate change such as conserving energy in the home and the Liberal Democrat policy of introducing green taxes while reducing income tax to offset the burden. She supports reducing the voting age to 16 as one way of engaging young people in politics. She believes more women should be involved in politics but that encouragement is better than affirmative action in achieving this. She opposes positive discrimination to address gender imbalance, and led the argument against positive discrimination to select her party's candidates at their national party conference in 2002, wearing a pink T-shirt inscribed with the slogan, "I am not a token woman".
Swinson has also called for a "wellbeing index" to be introduced, to be compared against GDP, and tabled an early day motion on the issue in 2008, gaining 50 signatures. She found support from MPs such as Vince Cable and Angela Eagle. Swinson cited the fact that although standard of living had increased, people's level of wellbeing had been virtually static for some time, according to polls.
Swinson believed that new prisons ought not to be built, and had campaigned vocally but without success against the rebuilding of a prison at Bishopbriggs within the constituency. She had said that if a prison were to be built it must not be built cheaply, and that it ought not to be named after the town in which it was to be sited. The campaign to give the prison its original name was ultimately successful, for the replacement prison was to retain its original name, Lowmoss Prison.
Swinson is an active campaigner against excessive packaging of chocolate Easter eggs. Each year from 2007 saw her attack confectionery manufacturers for wasteful use of non-recyclable materials in packaging of the seasonal goods. She has named Guylian as the worst offender, followed by Lindt, Baileys and Cadbury.
Swinson successfully held her seat of East Dunbartonshire in the 2010 general election, although with a slightly decreased majority. Her party, the Liberal Democrats, subsequently entered into a coalition with the Conservative Party.
Parliamentary Private Secretary In November 2010, Swinson was made parliamentary private secretary to the then Business Secretary Vince Cable.
In December 2010, she was one of 27 Liberal Democrat MPs who voted in favour of allowing universities to raise tuition fees up to £9,000 per year.
In February 2012, Swinson replaced Norman Lamb as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, holding this position until her promotion to government minister later that year.
Business Minister (2012–2015)
In September 2012, Swinson was appointed Under Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs in a reshuffle by then Prime Minister David Cameron. She maintained this role for the remainder of the Cameron–Clegg coalition, except for several months of maternity leave between 2013 and 2014.
Swinson initially focused efforts on scrapping the 1871 Pedlars Act, which prevents pedlars (travelling salesmen) and street traders from trading without first acquiring a certificate from the police. In November 2012, Swinson said that the proposed deregulation would help "eliminate barriers to street traders and pedlars by making it easier to trade, boosting retail and helping small traders – including many young entrepreneurs – to expand and grow". The proposal was criticised by the Local Government Association, which claimed that it would lead to a 'free for all' of pedlars targeting vulnerable people. By 2014, however, Swinson announced she would seek to amend rather than repeal the laws.
Swinson opposed forcing companies to adopt gender quotas, stating that such a move would "negatively affect" the performance of businesses. She instead promoted voluntary solutions, telling an event organised by the British Chambers of Commerce, "What women need is confidence, not quotas. So rather than telling companies what to do, we're encouraging them to see the real business benefits of taking voluntary action."
From 2013, Swinson sought to promote fathers' rights in regard to parental leave, bringing forth new legislation which allowed parents to divide parental leave between themselves with an aim to encourage fathers to spend more time with their newborn infants.
In October 2013, controversy emerged after MPs in the House of Commons allowed Swinson, then pregnant, to stand for 20 minutes without offering her a seat. This led to political debate and comment about whether or not it was sexist to give up a seat for a pregnant woman, with Prime Minister David Cameron wading into the row to say that offering pregnant women seats was the right thing to do. Swinson herself later commented that it was not sexist to offer a pregnant woman a seat, and that it was "great for people to offer, and part of life's little courtesies".
In the area of employment, she was supportive of both Zero-hour contracts and flexible working, seeking to promote the latter especially. On minimum wage, in February 2013 Swinson joined calls by other ministers to warn that "caution" was required when increasing it any further amid claims that minimum wage could be cut or frozen if it began costing jobs. Swinson pledged £80,000 of government financial support for the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, an initiative led by corporations including Aviva Investors and Calvert which measures and ranks performance of global companies in regard to human rights.
Swinson was keen to promote employee ownership, such as employee ownership of shares, through the establishment of a FTSE-compliant UK Employee Ownership Index, supporting measures to reduce regulations for companies choosing to adopt employee ownership practices, and a scheme allowing companies to contractually offer employees £2,000 to £50,000 worth of shares (which would be exempted from capital gains tax) in exchange for waiving certain employee rights. Swinson traced employee ownership back to the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, and claimed that such ownership models improve productivity and lower absenteeism in staff.
By 2014, it was being reported that Swinson was tipped to replace Alistair Carmichael as Scottish Secretary and enter the Cabinet in a potential reshuffle, which at the time would have made her the youngest female Cabinet member ever and the first Cabinet member to be born in the 1980s. At the same time, however, electoral projections for the 2015 general election showed Swinson was under serious risk of losing her East Dunbartonshire seat to a surge of Scottish National Party support.
Swinson introduced to parliament the Consumer Rights Act 2015 on 23 January 2014, so as to consolidate and update consumer protection law and thereby provide a "modern framework of consumer rights".
Shortly before the 2015 general election, The Times and the Financial Times reported that Swinson was one of a number of prominent 'right-leaning' Liberal Democrat MPs, aligned to then Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, deliberately excluded from campaign funding by former leading Liberal Democrat peer and donor Matthew Oakeshott even though their seats, including Swinson's, were vulnerable marginals.
Swinson was featured in the 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 editions of the 'London's 1000 most influential people' list by the Evening Standard.
2015 and 2017 general elections Swinson lost her parliamentary seat in the 2015 general election to Scottish National Party candidate John Nicolson by 2,167 votes (4.0%). She stood again for her former seat during the 2017 general election and won with a lead of 5,339 votes (10.3%) over Nicolson. During this time, she wrote her book Equal Power: And How You Can Make It Happen.
Between 2017 and 2018, Swinson received political funding from Mark Petterson, the director of Warwick Energy Ltd, which has fracking licences across England. She also voted against plans to ban fracking in the UK.
Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats (2017–2019)