The Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2025 | |
| Member of the House of Lords | |
| Life peerage 3 November 1997 | |
| Member of the European Parliament forSouth East England | |
| In office 10 June 1999 – 4 June 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Catherine Bearder |
| Member of Parliament forTorridge and West Devon | |
| In office 11 June 1987 – 8 April 1997 | |
| Preceded by | Peter Mills |
| Succeeded by | John Burnett |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Emma Harriet Nicholson (1941-10-16)16 October 1941 (age 84) Oxford, England |
| Party | Conservative (before 1995; since 2016)[1] |
| Other political affiliations | Liberal Democrats (1995–Jul. 2016) Non-affiliated (Jul.–Sept. 2016) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives | Reginald Manningham-Buller, 1st Viscount Dilhorne (uncle) John Manningham-Buller, 2nd Viscount Dilhorne (cousin) Eliza Manningham-Buller (cousin) |
Emma Harriet Nicholson, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (born 16 October 1941) is a British politician, who has been alife peer since 1997. She was elected as theConservativeMember of Parliament (MP) forTorridge and West Devon in 1987, before switching to theLiberal Democrats in 1995. She was also a Liberal DemocratMember of the European Parliament (MEP) forSouth East England from 1999 to 2009. In 2016, she announced she was rejoining the Conservative Party "with tremendous pleasure".[2] In 2017, Baroness Nicholson was appointed as thePrime Minister's Trade Envoy for Kazakhstan.[3]
Born in Oxford and a descendant of the family that founded London gin distillersJ&W Nicholson & Co, Lady Nicholson is the third of four daughters ofSir Godfrey Nicholson, Bt and his wife, Lady Katharine (the fifth daughter of the27th Earl of Crawford).Her uncle wasLord Chancellor in the 1960s,[4] and his daughter, her cousinEliza Manningham-Buller, becameDirector General of MI5.
She was diagnosed as deaf at the age of 16.[5] She was educated atSt Mary's School, Wantage and theRoyal Academy of Music.[citation needed]
Before her political career, she was acomputer programmer andsystems analyst from 1962 to 1974, and a director of theSave the Children Foundation from 1974 to 1985.
She unsuccessfully contested the constituency ofBlyth in the1979 general election. She was elected aConservativeMember of Parliament forTorridge and West Devon in1987, having acted as a vice-chairman of the Conservative Party between 1983 and 1987. She defected to theLiberal Democrats in December 1995,[6][7] tellingRobin Oakley, the BBC's Political Editor: "The Conservative Party has changed so much, while my principles have not changed at all. I would argue that it is not so much a case of my leaving the party, but the party leaving me."[8]
Nicholson fought for the release ofKatiza Cebekhulu, the "missing witness" in the case of the death ofStompie Seipei.[9] The South African national had been part of the so-calledMandela United Football Club, the bodyguards ofWinnie Mandela.[10] Cebekhulu later claimed that Nicholson had demanded £50,000 from him to obtain copyright over a book she hadFred Bridgland written about him; Nicholson denied this, saying her motives were "exclusively humanitarian and honourable".[11]
As an MP Nicholson voted forSection 28 which banned schools and local authorities from promoting homosexuality[12] and denounced lesbian families as "neither normal nor natural".[13] She also voted against an equal age of consent for heterosexuals and homosexuals[14] and her opposition to gay rights led a group called theLesbian Avengers to organise a "tea party-cum-protest" on her lawn.[15]
She was succeeded byJohn Burnett, later Baron Burnett, in 1997, whenTony Blair won his landslide. That year, Nicholson was made alife peer asBaroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, of Winterbourne, in the Royal County of Berkshire.[16]
Lady Nicholson became a member of theEuropean Parliament in 1999, joining theCommittee on Foreign Affairs[17] and serving as the committee's vice-president from 2004 to 2007. She was President of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq and President of theCommittee on Women's Rights of theEuro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.[18] Lady Nicholson was also a member ofthe subcommittee on Human Rights, the Delegation for relations with Iran and the Delegation for relations with theMashreq countries (i.e. the eastern Arab world).[19] She was Rapporteur for Kashmir, and in 2007 her controversial report on Kashmir was passed by a majority of 522 to 9.
During theIraq War, Nicholson gave evidence to the United Nations that she claimed showed Iraq had "hidden material used to makeweapons of mass destruction".[20] She described thedraining of the Mesopotamian Marshes as a "genocide".[21]
She hasmonitored elections in many countries. In 2006, Lady Nicholson was Chief Observer of the European Union Election Observation Mission to Yemen. She was a member of European Union Election Observation Missions to Palestine (2005), Azerbaijan (2005), Lebanon (2005), Afghanistan (2005), Armenia (2007) and Pakistan (2008). In January and December 2005 she was a member of the United Nations Election Observation Missions to Iraq.
She also generated controversy through her strong opposition tointernational adoptions, which she believed had become a market and subject to corruption. While the European Parliament'sSpecial Rapporteur forRomania's EU accession she and some others in the international[22] community criticised international adoptions. Due partially to her pressure, the Romanian government in 2005 implemented legislation thatde facto banned the practice, in line with practices in some of the EU member states. The measure generated controversy, mainly in the US, Israel, France, Spain and Italy, particularly from prospective parents. International and Romanian media also called attention to poor conditions inRomanian orphanages and hospitals whereabandoned children remained for prolonged periods, while acknowledging some progress made in reforming child protection. In December 2005 and July 2006, the EP passed measures requesting Romania deal with outstanding pipeline cases, despite Romania having dismissed these formally through legislation after consultation with an Independent Panel of EU Experts on Family Law. Critics claimed that this panel was stacked with opponents of international adoptions. TheU.S. Congress also passed repeated measures and held hearings opposing the ban.[citation needed]
Lady Nicholson stood down from the European Parliament atthe 2009 elections.
In 2009, Lady Nicholson returned to London and resumed her political work at the House of Lords. In February 2010, she founded theAll-party parliamentary group (APPG) for Business Development in Iraq and the Regions[23] and has served as its chair.[24] She is also a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Human Trafficking, chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Foreign Affairs and speaks regularly on health care and education in the Middle East and Eastern Europe and business development in Iraq and its wider neighbourhood.[25] In 2013 she argued that the Iraq War was "resoundingly" worth it, and claiming Liberal Democrat party members who took an opposing stance were "guilty of hypocrisy".[26] She was appointed as Prime Minister's Trade Envoy for Iraq[27] on 30 January 2014.
She resigned the Liberal Democrat whip in July 2016, to sit as a non-affiliated member. However, on 10 September 2016, she announced she was re-joining the Conservative Party "with tremendous pleasure" and would sit on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords. Listing her reasons for rejoining the Tories, she highlightedTheresa May's education speech on 9 September, quoting May's position ongrammar schools as evidence that the prime minister "leads a party with a real commitment to delivering for the next generation and building a country that works for everyone".[2] However, the Liberal Democrats claimed that she had said her reason for leaving the party was herposition on Europe.[clarification needed][28]
Baroness Nicholson visited Kazakhstan as the Prime Minister's Trade Envoy on 28 April 2019. The six-day visit was focused on expanding trade relations with the Central Asian country.[29]
She voted against gay marriage on the grounds it would degrade "the status of women and of girls".[30][31]
She is a supporter of theLGB Alliance and the group has thanked for her "unwavering support".[32]
Lady Nicholson is the Executive Chairman of the AMAR Foundation,[33] which works to rebuild and improve the lives of disadvantaged communities in war-torn areas.
She is Executive Chairman of the Iraq Britain Business Council[34] an organisation that facilitates business, trade investment, human resources, training and transfer of technology and know-how into the Republic of Iraq.
Lady Nicholson is Executive Chairman of the Associatia Children's High Level Group. She co-founded its English counterpart, the Children's High Level Group (now the charityLumos, "working to end the harm of institutionalisation & help children worldwide be reunited with family"[35]) with novelist and philanthropistJ. K. Rowling.[36] Lady Nicholson is the co-chairman with thePrime Minister of Romania of the High Level Group for Romania's Children and the co-chairman with thePrime Minister of Moldova of the High Level Group for Moldovan Children.
Lady Nicholson is also a member of theAmerican Bar Association's Middle East North Africa Council, the Arab Gulf Programme forUnited Nations Development Organisations Prize Committee andFreedom House International Solidarity Committee.[citation needed] She is a board member of theFoundation for Dialogue Among Civilisations,[37] theAmerican Islamic Congress,[citation needed] and a member of the Board of Advisors for theNew York University Center for Dialogues, Islamic World.[38] She is vice-president ofThe Little Foundation, and is Honorary Advisor to the Prime Minister andGovernment of Iraq on Public Health and related issues.[citation needed]
Nicholson was a Trustee of theBooker Prize until 2009, after which she was made an honorary vice-president. In June 2020, Nicholson referred to modelMunroe Bergdorf on Twitter as "a weird creature" and shared posts Bergdorf consideredtransphobic, resulting in an official complaint to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.[39] This led to criticism of Booker from writers includingDamian Barr,[40]Marlon James andSarah Perry.[41] Booker subsequently announced that they would be dissolving all honorary titles and roles associated with the event.[42]
On 9 May 1987, Nicholson married SirMichael Harris Caine, with whom she had a foster son Amar Kanim, who was rescued from Iraq after surviving anapalm attack in March 1991.[43][44] She set up the Amar Foundation to support projects in Iraq.[45] She is President of the Council of theCaine Prize for African Writing, which was named after her late husband.
Nicholson was widowed in 1999 and alleged negligence by hospital staff treating her husband atKing Edward VII's Hospital.[46] Nicholson claims that nurses at the King Edward VII refused to call consultants and doctors despite her husband's distress when a breathing tube could not be cleared.[47] In September 1999The Guardian reported that Baroness Nicholson was due to pursue legal action against the hospital alleging negligence.[46] In light of her husband's death, Baroness Nicholson said:
I find it repugnant that NHS beds should be used as a final resource by the private hospitals who set themselves up as being able to cope and yet demonstrably cannot. I don't see why the NHS resource should be leached away in this way.[46]
In 2017, Lady Nicholson received an honorary doctorate in International Leadership and Humanitarian Service fromBrigham Young University in the United States for her charity and humanitarian work across the Middle East.[48][49]
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Media related toEmma Nicholson at Wikimedia Commons
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forTorridge and West Devon 1987–1997 | Succeeded by |
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