page_title: Liberal Democrats (UK)
section_title: Nick Clegg and coalition with the Conservatives (2007–2015)
hierarchical_section_title: Liberal Democrats (UK) / History / Nick Clegg and coalition with the Conservatives (2007–2015)
caption_attribution_description: English: Dover and Deal Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate John Brigden meeting with Liberal Democrat party leader Nick Clegg at the Houses of Parliament in London.
context_page_description: The Liberal Democrats are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom. The party has 11 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 89 members of the House of Lords, five Members of the Scottish Parliament and one member in both the Welsh Parliament and the London Assembly. It formed a UK coalition government with the Conservative Party from 2010 to 2015. In devolved governments, the Liberal Democrats are currently in coalition with Welsh Labour in the devolved Welsh government, and also served as the junior partner with Scottish Labour in the Scottish Government from 1999 to 2007.
  In 1981, an electoral alliance was established between the Liberal Party, a group which was the direct descendant of the 18th-century Whigs, and the Social Democratic Party, a splinter group from the Labour Party. In 1988, the parties merged as the Social and Liberal Democrats, adopting their present name over a year later. Under the leadership of Paddy Ashdown and later Charles Kennedy, the party grew during the 1990s and 2000s, focusing its campaigns on specific seats and becoming the third-largest party in the House of Commons.
context_section_description: In December 2007, Nick Clegg narrowly beat Chris Huhne to take the party's leadership. Clegg's reshuffle of the leadership team was seen by many as a shift to the right; under Clegg, the party moved away from the social democratic focus it displayed previously. It rebranded itself as a party that would cut rather than raise taxes and dropped its hard pro-EU position. In the 2008 local elections it gained 34 seats, beating Labour in terms of vote share. The following year, the party was damaged by the expenses scandal as several Lib Dem MPs and peers were found to have misused their expenses; Campbell for example was revealed to have claimed nearly £10,000 in expenses for luxury home furnishings. In the build-up to the 2010 general election, Clegg took part in the UK's first televised party leaders debate; he was generally considered to have performed well, with pundits referring to an ensuing "Cleggmania".
  In the election, the Lib Dems secured 23% of the vote and 57 seats; the Conservatives were the largest party but lacked a majority. The Conservatives and Lib Dems formed a coalition government, with Clegg becoming Deputy Prime Minister. Four other Lib Dems—Cable, Huhne, Danny Alexander, and David Laws—entered the coalition Cabinet. Of the 57 Liberal Democrat MPs, only two refused to support the Conservative Coalition agreement, with former party leader Charles Kennedy and Manchester Withington MP John Leech both rebelling against. Many Lib Dems opposed the move, with some favouring a coalition deal with Labour. As part of the coalition agreement, the Conservatives agreed to Lib Dem demands to introduce elected health boards, put forward a Fixed Term Parliament Bill, and end income tax for those earning less than £10,000 a year. The Conservatives also agreed to shelve their plans to replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with a proposed British Bill of Rights. The Conservatives refused to agree to Lib Dem demands for proportional referendum, instead offering a referendum on a switch from first-past-the-post to the Alternative Vote system. The coalition introduced an emergency budget to attack the fiscal deficit.
  After joining the coalition poll ratings for the party fell, particularly following the government's support for raising the cap on tuition fees with Liberal Democrat MPs voting 27 for, 21 against and 8 abstaining. The Liberal Democrats had made opposing tuition fees a major message of their campaign, with all of the party's MPs, including Nick Clegg, signing the Vote for Students pledge to oppose any increase in student tuition fees prior to the 2010 general election. Clegg later made a formal apology for breaking this promise in September 2012. Shortly after the 2015 general election, Liberal Democrat leadership contender Norman Lamb conceded that Clegg's broken pledge on university tuition had proven costly.
  In the May 2011 local elections and the elections for the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament, the Liberal Democrats suffered heavy defeats. 
  Clegg admitted that the party had taken "big knocks" due to a perception that the coalition government had returned to the Thatcherism of the 1980s.
  As part of the deal that formed the coalition, it was agreed to hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote, in which the Conservatives would campaign for First Past the Post and the Liberal Democrats for Alternative Vote. The referendum, held on 5 May 2011, resulted in First Past the Post being chosen over Alternative Vote by approximately two-thirds of voters. In May 2011, Clegg revealed plans to make the House of Lords a mainly elected chamber, limiting the number of peers to 300, 80% of whom would be elected with a third of that 80% being elected every 5 years by single transferable vote. In August 2012, Clegg announced that attempts to reform the House of Lords would be abandoned due to opposition for the proposals by backbench Conservative MPs. Claiming the coalition agreement had been broken, Clegg stated that Liberal Democrat MPs would no longer support changes to the House of Commons boundaries for the 2015 general
caption: Nick Clegg, leader from 2007 to 2015 and Deputy Prime Minister from 2010 to 2015
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