Emma Nicholson, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne

Emma Harriet Nicholson, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (born 16 October 1941 in Oxford) is a British politician. She is a life peer and a member of the House of Lords, and also is a Member of the European Parliament for South East England. She is a member of the Liberal Democrats. She co-founded the Children's High Level Group with JK Rowling which incorporates The Children's Voice campaign, a consumer-facing campaign that aims to make life better for young people in care, across Eastern Europe and ultimately across the whole of the modern world. It aims to inspire the public to help change the lives of children throughout Europe through fundraising and public opinion.

Early life

Nicholson of Winterbourne is the third of four daughters of Sir Godfrey Nicholson, Bt. and his wife, Lady Katharine (the fifth daughter of the 27th Earl of Crawford) and was educated at St Mary's School, Wantage and the Royal Academy of Music. Prior to her political career, she was a computer programmer and systems analyst from 1962-74, and a director of the Save the Children Foundation from 1974 to 1985.

Career

She was elected a Conservative Member of Parliament for Torridge and West Devon, in 1987, and was vice-chairman between 1983 and 1987. She defected to the Liberal Democrats in 1995. She was made a life peer as Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne in the Royal County of Berkshire in 1997, and became an MEP in 1999.

In 2002 Baroness Nicholson was voted 'MEP of the Year' by the readers of the Brussels magazine European Voice.

Nicholson is Vice President of the EP Committee on Foreign Affairs and a member of the Delegation for relations with Iran, the Mashrek Delegation, and of the European Mediterranean Parliamentary Delegation. In 2007 her controversial report on Kashmir was passed by the European Parliament by a majority of 522 to 9.

Nicholson also generated controversy through her strong opposition to international adoptions, which she believed had become a market and subject to corruption. While the EP's Special Rapporteur for Romania's EU accession she and some others in the international [http://www.laprimogenita.it/Documenti/romanadopt.pdf] community criticized international adoptions. Due partially to her pressure, the Romanian government in 2005 implemented legislation that de facto banned international adoptions, 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 who had filed papers for adopting a Romanian child but whose efforts were halted by the ban. International and Romanian media also called attention to poor conditions in Romanian orphanages and hospitals where abandoned children remained for prolonged periods, while acknowledging some progress made in reforming child protection [http://astateofaffairs.blogspot.com/2007/03/europarliamentarian-sneaks-through.html] . 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 the Independent Panel was stacked with opponents of international adoptions. The U.S. Congress also passed repeated measures and held hearings opposing the ban.

On 9 May 1987, Nicholson married Sir Michael Harris Caine, with whom she had a foster son, who was from Iraq. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1128343.ece] . She became a widow in 1999.

External links

* [http://emmanicholson.info/ Emma Nicholson MEP] official site
* [http://www.europarl.eu.int/members/expert/groupAndCountry/view.do?partNumber=1&group=1550&country=GB&language=EN&id=4522 Emma Nicholson] profile at the European Parliament
* [http://www.libdems.org.uk/people/baroness-nicholson-of-winterbourne Emma Nicholson] profile at the site of the Liberal Democrats
* [http://www.chlg.org/ Children's high level group homepage]