Charlotte Nichols MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q13. The nuclear industry provides over 29,000 jobs across the north-west, including thousands in Birchwood Park in my constituency, which is a globally leading centre of nuclear innovation. I welcome the Government’s new modern industrial strategy, which will give businesses the confidence to invest after years of economic chaos under the last Government. Will the Prime Minister outline how the industrial strategy will support the growth of the nuclear sector, which is vital to our energy security, and to creating thousands more high-paid, high-skilled and unionised jobs?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This is Armed Forces Week, and as we celebrate the contribution of our armed forces, we must do more to support those who serve our country. Too many of our veterans return home with post-traumatic stress disorder, for which there are few treatment options. Since December 2023, the Home Office has been sitting on a response to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs report on barriers to research on schedule 1 substances, including MDMA and psilocybin, which are used in other jurisdictions such as Australia to treat PTSD. Can the Leader of the House please find out where this response is, and arrange for a debate in Government time on novel treatments for mental health conditions?

• 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?

• 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.

• 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?

• 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?

• 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?

• 24 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The latest ONS statistics on drug-related deaths make horrifying reading. The rate of drug poisoning deaths in 2023 was double the 2012 rate. Just under half of all drug poisoning deaths registered in 2023 were confirmed to have involved an opiate, while 1,118 deaths involved cocaine. That is over 30% more than the previous year, and it represents the 12th consecutive annual rise. How can the Leader of the House facilitate our coming together as a Parliament with the relevant Departments to produce a grown-up, evidence-based drugs policy framework that is rooted in harm reduction, which is long overdue?

• 8 Oct 2024 · Workers in High-Carbon Sectors · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State and the Minister will know that civil nuclear has a higher employment multiplier than any other form of zero or low-carbon energy generation. As part of the transition from high-carbon sectors, what specific measures are the Government taking to retrain workers and transfer skills into the nuclear energy industry, thus ensuring that they benefit from job creation in this growing sector in my constituency and throughout the country?