Constituency : Northavon 1997-2010, Thornbury and Yate 2010-2015
Steve took Northavon from the Tories, overturning an 11,000 majority.
Steve was born in Birmingham. He was educated at Dartmouth High School and Oxford. He went to work for the Institute of Fiscal Studies as a researcher into poverty, benefits and taxes. In 1995 he became a Professor of Social Policy at Bath University.
Steve's title made him suspect to some MPs ; Dennis Skinner shouted "get back to your anoraks !" at him. In 2001, Charles Kennedy made him lead spokesman on Work and Pensions where his expertise made him generally respected In 2005 he switched to health. He was moved around various shadow roles as Gordon Brown shuffled his government. He also co-ordinated the party's election manifesto and was part of Nick Clegg's Economic Recovery Group. Steve was one of the first MPs to make use of social media.
Although seen as being on the left of the party, Steve did contribute a chapter to the Orange Book. He was a member of the cross-party Christians in Parliament. He opposed liberalisation of the pornography laws at the party conference in 2004.
Steve was expected to run for leader when Menzies Campbell stood down but he backed Nick Clegg instead. Clegg was later secretly recorded saying he couldn't stand Steve. Despite this, he made him Minister for Pensions under Iain Duncan-Smith. The two men enjoyed a good working relationship.
Steve was one of the most impressive Liberal Democrat ministers. He introduced the "triple lock" to protect state pensions and auto-enrolment to bring more people into a pensions scheme.
Steve was narrowly defeated by the Tories in 2015. He became director of policy and external communications at Royal London and declined to stand again in 2017. He is a regular commentator on pensions issues on TV.
Steve was knighted in 2017.
He is now 53.
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