Parliamentary Career
He was elected as a Liberal member of Somerset County Council in 1985, becoming the leader of the council 1985-1989. At the age of 31, he was the youngest ever leader of a county council. He remained as the Liberal Democrat group leader until 1991 and stood down from the council in 1997. He unsuccessfully contested Somerton and Frome at the 1992 General Election where he was defeated by the new Conservative MP Mark Robinson by 4,341 votes. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1997 General Election when he ousted Robinson at Somerton and Frome by just 130 votes and has remained the MP there since. Although his majority has risen at each subsequent election, it remains at just 1,819. He made his maiden speech on 21 May 1997.
In Parliament he served on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee for two years from 1997 and at the same time was appointed as a frontbench spokesman on foreign affairs by Paddy Ashdown. He became an agriculture, fisheries and food spokesman under the new leadership of Charles Kennedy in 1999. Following the 2001 General Election he became a spokesman on work and pensions as well as serving as a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee. In 2003 he was appointed party spokesman on home affairs before moving to speak on the office of the Leader of the House of Commons and the Department for Constitutional Affairs in 2005, and then the Ministry of Justice in 2007. Heath was also a member of the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons from 2005 to 2006.
Heath ran for the deputy leadership of the Liberal Democrats in 2006 and came third in the first round.
In March 2008 Heath was one of three Liberal Democrat spokesmen to defy the party whip and vote in favour of a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, for which he was sacked from his frontbench role. In October 2008 he was given a partial reprieve when he was chosen to lead a Liberal Democrat commission on privacy in the UK, and in January 2009 he was reappointed as spokesman on the office of the Leader of the House of Commons. In 2010, he was re-elected as MP for Somerton and Frome.
He is the vice chairman of the all party groups on United Nations, Romania and the group on eye health and visual impairment. He is also the treasurer of the pharmacy group.
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