He went to Downshall Secondary Modern School (eventually ended up as Seven Kings High School) on Aldborough Road in Seven Kings near Ilford, then Newbattle Adult Education College in Newbattle, Midlothian, from 1961 to 1963.

He went to the University of Strathclyde, where he gained a BA in Politics and Psychology in 1968, then the University of Southampton, where he gained a Diploma in Applied Social Studies in 1970.

Soley was a Labour Party Member of Parliament from 1979, first for the constituency of Hammersmith North, then Hammersmith and finally Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush from 1997 to 2005.

In 2003, he voted in favour of the government's decision to engage in military action against Iraq.

He was from 2004 to 2016, chair of the trustees of Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal, now renamed the Mary Seacole Trust, which worked for the erection of the statue of Mary Seacole in the grounds of St Thomas's Hospital in London.