David Laws launched a stinging attack on the Tories, claiming their policies were designed to widen inequality and undermine public services.
During a debate on the economy, the Somerset MP, who chairs the party's manifesto working group, said: "In the next parliament, we must plan to complete our historic task of clearing up the economic mess we inherited from Labour in 2010. Unlike Ed Miliband, we will not forget out responsibilities to restore sound public finances in this country.
"We will commit to finishing the job of deficit reduction in full and on time and then we will set out a course to reduce public sector debt to safe levels. But unlike the Tories, our pre-manifesto commits us to finishing the job fairly, with the rich making a proper contribution to deficit reduction."
Mr Laws said there was not "some trivial political dividing line" between the main parties but "fundamental differences in policy and values".
He claimed the most eccentric speeches of the conference season were delivered by David Cameron and George Osborne.
"Their extraordinary proposition was this: they would cut the incomes of the poorest if they are re-elected to help fund tax cuts for the richest in society. And not a penny would be raised from taxation to meet the need to cut the deficit further.
"Conference, we as a party will have no part in such a strategy now or after the next election," declared the English Schools Minister.
He highlighted several policies implemented by the party, from the £10,000 tax allowance and the Green Investment Bank to free school meals for infant school children and same sex marriage.
"We have, then, achieved far, far more than any other group of Liberals or Liberal Democrats in the last 100 years," the Minister declared.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article