Charlotte Nichols MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 16 Jun 2025 · Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend has said that scope is an issue that the Modernisation Committee is looking at, and that it forms part of policy rather than procedure. Can she give an indication of when the outcome of that consideration might be coming forward, so that the Kernaghan recommendations can be taken forward further?

• 16 Jun 2025 · Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme · Hansard source

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  I make a declaration of interest: Max, in my parliamentary office, is one of many trade union reps across this House. In fact, he is so very good at what he does that 77 hon. and right hon. Members signed an early-day motion in the last Parliament recognising his service. What consideration has been given to representation of the unions of House staff and MPs’ staff on the ICGS assurance board, either as permanent members or in how the board engages with the unions in this place?

• 16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source

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  At Manchester Minshull Street Crown court last week, seven men were convicted for sickening crimes as part of a grooming gang. One of their victims, girl A, who was abused by in excess of 50 men, was advised by the police to make a claim for criminal injuries compensation, for which she would have received just £22,000. She did not make a claim, but that did not stop the defence from arguing that she made up accusations to bolster a claim for compensation. The Government will be aware that I have raised on many occasions the inadequacies of the criminal injuries compensation framework for victims of sexual violence and exploitation, and they will be aware of recommendations from the IICSA review and the Victims’ Commissioner on this matter. While no amount of money could be adequate to compensate victims such as girl A, we owe it to them to ensure that they have the financial support required to rebuild their lives and do not have to choose between that and justice. How much longer will we all be waiting for this?

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  With the National Police Chiefs’ Council having declared violence against women and girls a national emergency, it is right that we explore radical methods to bring down the scale of offending in our communities. We know that most sexual offending is not about sex at all, but about power. However, for the subset of convicts whose offending is driven by sexual compulsion, chemical castration could be an option. Is there estimate data on how many future offences that could prevent? By definition, it would only be for those who have already offended. As I am not aware of a method of permanent chemical castration, is there capacity in the Probation Service to monitor ongoing compliance with treatment?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Criminal Injuries Compensation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his summing up. I want to pick up on that point. When the White Paper on changes to the scheme came out in 1993, more than two Governments back, the then Government said that the changes they wanted to make to the scheme were driven by a desire to “provide a better service” to claimants, although they admitted that the main aim was to cut costs. It is clear from today’s debate that it is important to ensure that change is driven by providing a better service, rather than by cost-saving measures. Does my hon. Friend agree that that needs to be the core focus, above any other consideration from the Treasury?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Criminal Injuries Compensation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner)—I am proud to say that he truly is a friend—laid out perfectly the historical context in which the criminal injuries compensation scheme was devised and the economic, moral and financial case for change, given that it has failed to meet its objectives. I am one of the co-sponsors of this debate, and I want to support my hon. Friend’s core argument and lay out an aspect of the scheme that cannot be understood by those for whom it is an abstract point of law or procedure. Rape and sexual assault have a conviction rate of a pathetic 1.5% or so, so vanishingly few victims ever get justice through the courts. Of course we need to use every lever of Government to bring down the number of offences and drive up the number of perpetrators convicted, but to focus entirely on the criminal justice element is to miss the point when it comes to supporting victims. CICA provides a twofold civil remedy. First, it provides a level of financial restitution for the experience. Secondly, and most importantly, it is state recognition of the person’s experience as a blameless victim of violent crime. That vindication is an important part of the process of closure for people who have been victims of the most hideous crimes, including where a perpetrator has not been apprehended or where a conviction cannot be secured. A constituent who was a victim of rape told me: “I’ll probably never know why the jury decided not to convict in my case. The compensation awarded wouldn’t actually cover the cost of a copy of the trial transcript. The process of closure for me began with that letter from CICA, that seeking justice hadn’t been in vain despite the enormous personal cost. Beyond the nightmares I still have replaying that night, replaying the trial, the court room, replaying every indignity meted out upon me over a truly miserable three year period; it is there. In black and white. On the record. This happened to you. He is a rapist. We believe you. That’s what that piece of paper meant.” Every victim deserves vindication, but among the largest barriers is the time limit. The Victims’ Commissioner —the indomitable Baroness Newlove, who is incidentally a constituent of mine—recommended to the Government back in 2019 that it be amended in her landmark report “Compensation without re-traumatisation”. We are still waiting. The time limit pressures victims into choosing between pursuing justice in the courts and a civil remedy—lest the defence infers a financial motive for coming forward—leaving them with a high statistical likelihood of ending up with neither. However, if the expectation is that victims should pursue both at the same time, or even in close succession, that is wildly unrealistic given just how much the criminal justice system retraumatises a person and puts far too much onus on the victim all at once. That is not a reasonable expectation for us in this place to have of the dozens of constituents I have signposted and supported through this process. It is a huge thing to do, and we can never fully appreciate just how much it grinds a person down unless they have been through it. The fact that many of those who apply will be turned away because of arbitrary time limits, or that many will be dissuaded from applying at all for the support that they are entitled to in the expectation that that will happen, leaves victims without the ability to get closure. It leaves them frozen. In Warrington, 349 victims have already made a successful CICA claim in the past five years; from the crime statistics for our area alone, I know that there is massive under-claiming. Then there are all the cases that will not show up in those statistics, including those dealt with in the family courts. Currently, no agency is responsible under the victims code for informing victims about the scheme; the expectation is that that falls to the police or local support services. I know that the Treasury has anxiety about this, but if we get anywhere near our target of halving violence against women and girls, the scheme will pay for itself. Until such time, victims cannot continue to pay the price. While there is no amount that would ever make being a victim of violent crime worth it, surely the least that they deserve is the amount that was intended back in 2012—not a fraction of that, as its value is eroded further each year by inflation. For all the things that successive Governments have seen fit to spend money on, it breaks my heart that none have thought this scheme worth consideration. While we work to improve victim support services generally, there will always be a role for CICA. Unfortunately, CICA is compensation for state failure to keep people safe and, too often, to deliver justice. That compensation should be significantly uplifted at the comprehensive spending review to ensure that its value is a fairer reflection of the debt that society owes to those victims that it has let down. Awards must be index-linked to inflation, so we do not end up having the same debate in 15 years’ time. The time limit should be amended in line with the recommendations of the Victims’ Commissioner, and we should ensure that the framework aligns with the rest of our system, including with our increased understanding of the harms of non-contact sexual offences. I hope that all hon. Members will support the ten-minute rule Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield next week, so that we can start this vital reform. I look forward to the Minister’s response today.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Criminal Injuries Compensation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend refers to low-paid workers; we know that retail staff are among the victims who experience a really shocking amount of violent crime within the workplace. Will he join me in paying tribute to the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers for the work it is doing to ensure that its members who are victims of violent crime in the workplace can access the CICA scheme?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Criminal Injuries Compensation · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his speech and particularly for his reference to ISVAs and victim support. In the Warrington area, there is no support available through either the NHS or third sector organisations for people under the age of 18 who have been victims of violence. That is why the CICA scheme is so important: it gives victims the ability to get specialist therapy outside the NHS and the charitable sector. Does he agree that ISVA services need to be far better funded, so that they can offer much more bespoke support to victims throughout the UK, including child victims?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  It was good to meet the Safeguarding Alliance this morning about its concerns, which I share, regarding the patchwork of different Departments, bodies and regulators with responsibility for safeguarding. That allows known offenders to slip through the gaps and continue offending. An overarching safeguarding regulator could close those gaps, and with a Cabinet Office review reportedly being undertaken on quangos and arm’s length bodies, will the Leader of the House arrange for Government time for MPs to be part of that? Can she advise when the Data (Use and Access) Bill, which might allow opportunities for better regulation around safeguarding data and information sharing, will be coming back to the House?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q2. The criminal injuries compensation scheme has not been uprated with inflation since 2012, which means that in real terms, compensation for victims of violent crime, including rape and child abuse, is worth less than half of what it was then. The consultation response published before Easter said that there was not the money to look at changing the scope, tariffs or time limits, despite expert advice and the recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. Will the Prime Minister commit to properly funding the Ministry of Justice to do this vital reform work, so that victims and their needs can become a priority, instead of an afterthought?

• 22 Apr 2025 · “For Women Scotland” Supreme Court Ruling · Hansard source

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  Far from clarity, the verdict raises as many questions as it answers. Indeed, it has been referred to by the civil servant Melanie Field, who oversaw the Equality Act’s drafting and passage, as having significantly reinterpreted Parliament’s intentions. These questions are primarily about the purpose now of the gender recognition certificate and whether exclusion from single-sex spaces is merely lawful or required. But in protecting women’s spaces such as toilets from predatory men pretending to be trans women, what exactly stops those same men from now accessing them by pretending to be trans men?

• 3 Apr 2025 · Video Game Industry · Hansard source

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  12. What assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of Government initiatives in supporting the long-term growth of the video game industry.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Video Game Industry · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State will know that we also produce a fifth of the world’s gin in Warrington. The UK video games industry is a huge success story, supporting 73,000 jobs, including in Warrington at companies like 10:10, Mindware, Freesphere Entertainment and Second Impact Games, and contributing more to UK GVA than the film and music industries combined. To strengthen UK gaming’s global competitiveness, particularly in the context of the announcements from the US last night, what consideration has the Secretary of State given to enhancing the video games expenditure credit?

• 3 Apr 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  In 2018, Warrington borough council applied for and was successful with a proposal for a new 56-place special free school for pupils with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder, whose needs cannot be met by our current provisions. The free school is part of an expansion plan to address that issue, and the implications of dither and delay from the Department for Education have exacerbated the funding challenges that the local authority and our schools face when sending pupils to out-of-borough independent placements, which cost circa £8.5 million from the high needs budget in 2024. May we have a debate in Government time about the process for opening new schools, and ensuring that pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, and their families, can have their needs met in their own boroughs?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Prevention of Drug Deaths · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this crucial debate. The statistics are harrowing, as other Members have said, but how have we got here? A decade-long disinvestment in drug treatment services, approaches more fit for scoring political points than actually solving a problem, a complete disregard for the expert guidance provided by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and an utter lack of expediency. Given those factors, it is little wonder that we have ended up in this position. My work as the unremunerated chair of the Centre for Evidence Based Drug Policy has shown me that there are practical measures that can make a real difference. Diamorphine-assisted therapy, or DAT, has a robust evidence base for helping people who have not responded to other treatment modalities reduce their illicit drug use. A DAT clinic in Middlesbrough demonstrated extraordinary outcomes: a 97% attendance rate, an 80% reduction in street heroin use, and a drastic drop in criminal activity—from 541 offences before treatment to just three in the same period following treatment. Those outcomes translated into an estimated £2.1 million saving across the health and criminal justice sectors, in addition to the lives saved. Tragically, the clinic was closed due to fragmented, unsustainable funding—yet another example of short-term thinking undermining long-term gains. The enhanced drug treatment service in Glasgow, which offers a similar model, has estimated that its services have resulted in a 50% to 70% reduction in health service costs. We are not alone in calling for these changes. A 2023 report by the Home Affairs Committee made it clear that harm reduction must play a far greater role in UK drugs policy. Its recommendations offer a pragmatic road map, and the Government must act on them if they are serious about reducing drug-related deaths. Most of the interventions require only minor amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which, after more than 50 years, appears increasingly unfit for purpose. Currently, the 1971 Act blocks the establishment of safer drug consumption facilities and overdose prevention centres, and the distribution of vital harm-reduction paraphernalia by qualified drug treatment services. That includes safer inhalation pipes, which remain illegal under section 9A, even though corner shops can legally sell dangerous, poor-quality pipes with no health oversight, under the guise of ornaments. A pilot is currently taking place in parts of England, with police support, and shows promising early results, including reductions in high-risk practices and increased awareness of the harms associated with drugs and how to reduce them. There are a number of services in my constituency that I am very proud of, but, to save the House’s time, I will not detail them. One of those is Change Grow Live, and I give massive credit to its work. When stigma shapes policy, we see punitive laws, fragmented services and inevitably soaring mortality rates. When compassion and evidence shape policy, we see reduced deaths, safer communities, diminished profits for criminal organisations and better returns on public investment. This is not just a moral imperative, but a public health necessity.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  According to research, 52% of integrated care boards in England, including Cheshire and Merseyside ICB, still require same-sex couples to self-fund at least six to 12 cycles of costly intrauterine insemination before they are eligible to access in vitro fertilisation treatment on the NHS. Can the Secretary of State please tell us what she is doing to end the postcode lottery for lesbian and bi couples looking to start a family?

• 19 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  While I accept that it is perfectly possible for people with severe mental health conditions to work with the right support—in Warrington, we already have an employment rate above the Government’s national target—is there not a risk that these proposals are premature and that we are legislating for the mental health services we might hope to have in the future, rather than where these services are today? Does the Secretary of State accept that the issue is not over-diagnosis, but the broken mental health services we inherited?

• 26 Feb 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. My constituent Mike Addison was one of a kind. A physical disability rugby league world champion with England and Warrington Wolves and an avid volunteer for the club and foundation, he was a friend to everyone who knew him. Tragically, he died at age 45, having taken his own life. One death by suicide is too many, and every suicide is preventable. However, Office for National Statistics data puts the rate in the north-west at more than double the rate in London, with a 17% increase last year. Will the Prime Minister outline what more can be done, working across Government, to help Warrington meet our target of eliminating suicide?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q2. Long-standing traders in the CPS Centre in Culcheth were devastated to receive eviction notices giving them just 28 days to vacate the premises, entirely out of the blue and on spurious pretexts from the new owner, the shell company Shivat Haminim Capital. So far, the owner and its legal representatives have failed to hear tenants’ concerns and mine, and to negotiate a way forward. Does the Prime Minister share my concern about this situation, and will he set out our plans to protect independent businesses that are the heart of our high streets and communities?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Higher Education Regulatory Approach · Hansard source

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  I welcome the careful and considered approach that the Secretary of State has taken to this issue; it stands in stark contrast to when the Act was first brought forward. I refer the shadow Secretary of State, and indeed the House, to my comments in Hansard on 13 May 2021, when the previous Secretary of State explicitly confirmed on Radio 4 that Holocaust denial would be protected speech. In that vein, does my right hon. Friend share the concern of groups such as the Union of Jewish Students and the Antisemitism Policy Trust that the draft guidelines produced by the Office for Students risked undermining existing good practice in tackling antisemitism? Will she give an assurance that the OfS will meet Jewish representative organisations to ensure that such mistakes cannot be repeated?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  I am glad that we are discussing this most important issue today. The National Police Chiefs’ Council rightly stated last year: “Violence against women and girls is a national emergency.” Action must be taken against our societal epidemic of violence, including sexual violence, against women and girls, and I am glad that the Government are committed to halving it in a decade. I will do my part to ensure that promise is delivered. We rightly talk a lot—although not nearly enough—in this place about victims. They must be at the heart of our work. Society has reached a place where most of us can accept the fact that we will all know victims of domestic or sexual violence. How could we not, with the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s statistics showing that approximately one in 12 women will be a victim in any given year, and as many as one in three over the course of a lifetime? Violence against women and girls is endemic in our country. It happens all around us and is committed by people—mainly men—whom we all know, and often trust and love. Societally, that is the aspect with which we have failed to grapple. Even though we accept that we know victims, far fewer people can accept that they know perpetrators. Instead, the 3,000 offences that happen each day, which leave behind psychological wreckage, seem to be rhetorically and conceptually driven by some sort of mysterious, passive, abstract force. It may be tempting to imagine that predators and perpetrators are unusual and could be identified if only we ditched our politically correct attitudes. However, that ignores the majority of abuse that takes place. Worse, it leads to a complacency that makes women and girls more vulnerable. It is easier, psychologically and societally, to hold to the idea that sexual violence is a rare thing, perpetrated by monsters that we can spot a mile off. Finding any excuse to delegitimise those who come forward—for example, by victim blaming, or by having preconceived ideas about how a “real” victim would behave—is key to upholding that. We see excuses made constantly for such behaviour, including in this place, and often by people who claim to be feminist or Christian, but who do not demonstrate any of the values that they claim to hold when it comes to having to confront the behaviour of someone in their circle. It is easier to immediately accept the abuser’s wholesale narrative and deflect, minimise, deny, defend or rubbish the victim’s credibility than to accept that someone we know is not only capable of that type of violence, but has perpetrated it. That tendency is at its most egregious when there is an institutional failure of reckoning, but all institutions are made up of individuals who share in and perpetuate that culpability. Even in the vanishingly rare cases in which someone is successfully convicted for domestic or sexual violence, we need only look at the comments online about how they had been “hard done by” or were “such a nice neighbour” and “couldn’t possibly have done it”. We all know that the vast majority of cases will never even make it that far, so what then? Let us be clear. According to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, “1 in 20 people are estimated to be perpetrators of VAWG per year”. Many of those will be repeat perpetrators. We will all know at least one of them. They hide in plain sight. They may very well be the last person we expect to be a perpetrator, and they know exactly what they are doing. Failure to acknowledge that means forcing victims to carry the shame that belongs to their abusers. We cannot say that we support victims coming forward if we cannot reconcile the fact that everyone here and everyone watching will know perpetrators of that form of violence. If we are to turn the tide, we need better education. We need more honest discussions of women’s safety and men’s roles. We need cultural change to identify and call out abusive behaviour. We need structures that believe women and girls and take misconduct seriously. We need investment in mental health and victim support services far above that currently on offer, including in the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, and support from independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers. We also need a justice system that works, that can deliver timely justice and in which women can have faith that they will not be further traumatised, as happens all too often, when seeking justice. Fundamentally, we all—in this place and right across society—need the courage to be more honest with ourselves about what we collectively look away from because it is too difficult. If we are ever going to hold perpetrators accountable and create and sustain a culture where women’s and girls’ safety is the norm, not the exception, that is where we need to begin.