Last month he said that he broadly supported the direction of the government's plan but he criticised plans to extend the Private Finance Initiative to primary health care.

Nick Harvey is an independently-minded Liberal Democrat who took Devon North from the Tories by a small margin, at his second try.

With a background in public relations, he put his skills to work as director of campaigning for the party with spectacular success in the 1997 election.

A eurosceptic in a pro-European party, he was opposed to a single currency and Euro-federalism, and even signed an anti-Maastricht motion with eurosceptic Tories.

He was the only Liberal Democrat to vote against the Maastricht Treaty in parliament.

But he later had a change of heart, writing an article entitled: "Why I'm now in favour of a single currency".

He pulled out of the 1999 Liberal Democrat leadership contest early, although it was said Paddy Ashdown looked on him with favour.