Caroline Nokes

Caroline Fiona Ellen Nokes (née Perry; born 26 June 1972) is a British Conservative Party politician.

Nokes was educated at The Romsey School, La Sagesse Convent in Romsey and then Peter Symonds' College, Winchester, before reading politics at the University of Sussex from 1991 to 1994.

After her graduation Nokes became a policy adviser to her father, in his role as a MEP.

Prior to her election she was chief executive of the National Pony Society, an animal welfare charity promoting and supporting the traditional native breeds of ponies through education, training and competition.

Nokes was a member of Test Valley Borough Council from 1999 until 2010, representing the Romsey Extra ward, and for some time was responsible for the leisure portfolio.

At the 2001 general election, Nokes stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Southampton Itchen constituency, where she finished second with 27.4% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour Party MP John Denham.

Nokes also stood unsuccessfully for the Romsey constituency at the 2005 general election, where she finished second with 44.4% of the vote behind the incumbent Liberal Democrat MP Sandra Gidley.

She was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Romsey and Southampton North in Hampshire in the 2010 general election.

She stood down as a councillor when she was elected to parliament in May 2010.

Nokes was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the new constituency of Romsey and Southampton North, defeating Liberal Democrat MP Sandra Gidley who had previously represented the Romsey constituency.

She was elected with 49.7% of the vote and a majority of 4,156.

Nokes was from 2010 to March 2015 a member of two parliamentary select committees, the Environmental Audit Select Committee, and the Education Select Committee.

She is a member of a parliamentary group for equine welfare.

In January 2011, Nokes introduced her first piece of legislation, the Consumer Protection Bill.

In August 2011, Nokes joined a parliamentary delegation to Equatorial Guinea which had Foreign Office support.

The delegation met with the country's Prime Minister, whom the delegation challenged about the country's human rights record.

Nokes went on to call for the country's president to instigate proper democracy and permit press freedom.

From 2012 to 2016 Nokes was an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Body Image.

Nokes sat on the Scrap Metal Dealers Bill Committee from 2012-2013, and in the same year was also a member of the Justice and Security Bill Committee.

She also sat on the Children and Families Bill Committee which scrutinises a bill designed to improve legislation affecting fostered and adopted children, children in care, children with Special Educational Needs, and the family justice system.

Nokes was also a member of the Deregulation Bill Committee and the Modern Slavery Bill Committee, a subject in which she had previously expressed a constituency interest and on which she had questioned the government.

From 2014 to 2015 she was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mark Harper at the Department for Work and Pensions.

In July 2014, Nokes became a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, as an aide to the minister with responsibility for disabled people.

In February 2014, Nokes criticised a House of Lords amendment to the Children and Families Bill which she said "watered down" the commitment to shared parenting, and spoke against the amendment in the House of Commons, arguing that shared parenting arrangements were in the best interests of children.

At the 2015 general election, Nokes was re-elected with an increased vote share of 54.4% and an increased majority of 17,712.

Nokes served in Theresa May's government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery at the Department for Work and Pensions from 2016 to 2017, Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office from 2017 to 2018, and as Minister of State for Immigration at the Home Office from January 2018 to July 2019.

Nokes was born at Lyndhurst Hospital in Lyndhurst, and raised in West Wellow, a village in Hampshire.

Her father is Roy Perry, a former Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Wight and Hampshire South constituency.

Nokes was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 EU membership referendum.

She was re-elected at the snap 2017 general election with an increased vote share of 57.1% and an increased majority of 18,006, and re-elected at the 2019 general election with a decreased vote share of 54.2% and a decreased majority of 10,872.

In January 2018, Nokes was appointed Minister of State for Immigration at the Home Office, a Cabinet position.

Accordingly, she was appointed to the Privy Council.

She was criticised by the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee after admitting she had not read the Good Friday Agreement.

Elected as a Conservative, Nokes had the Conservative whip removed on 3 September 2019 and sat as an independent politician until the whip was restored to her on 29 October.

She was removed by new Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 25 July 2019.

Nokes had the Conservative whip removed on 3 September 2019, after she voted against the party to extend the deadline for Britain to exit the European Union and prevent a no-deal Brexit, stating that her constituents in Romsey and Southampton North would be worse off under a no-deal Brexit.

She was among 10 MPs who had the whip restored on 29 October 2019.

On 29 January 2020, Nokes was elected to the position of chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, succeeding Maria Miller.

In May 2021, alongside celebrities and other public figures, Nokes was a signatory to an open letter supporting an campaign by Stylist magazine against "ending male violence against women and girls".

In September 2023, during the Laurence Fox GB News scandal, Nokes called for GB News to be closed down in view of the misogynistic comments that had been broadcast.