Nicola Richards is the Conservative MP for West Bromwich East, having first been elected to Parliament in 2019, gaining the seat from Labour with a majority of 1,593.
West Bromwich East includes the centre of West Bromwich, and is relatively deprived seat which for a number of years has possessed some of highest unemployment rates in the UK. A fifth of the electorate here are of Asian descent. This was one of the Conservative Party’s biggest gains in the 2019 General Election. The constituency was formerly represented by the retiring MP Tom Watson, the then Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. This area of West Bromwich had previously been a Labour seat ever since the Second World War. In the 2016 Brexit referendum 68.2% the electorate voted Leave.
Nicola Richards was appointed parliamentary private secretary to the Leader of the House of Commons in October 2022.
In March 2023, Richards announced she planned to stand down from Westminster at the next election citing a change in her presonal circumstances. She said that she hoped to become an MP again at a later date.
Born in 1994, Nicola Richards grew up in Dudley and is one of the youngest Conservative MPs. Having formerly studied politics at Birmingham University, she previously worked for a number of local Conservative MPs .
Richards was previously a PPS at the Department of Transport but resigned in July 2022 in protest at Boris Johnson continuing to remain as prime minister.
She also worked in Public Affairs for the Jewish Leadership council, and is now Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on antisemitism.
She was elected to Dudley Metropolitan Council in 2015.
Nicola Richards supported Brexit in the 2016 EU Referendum.
In early 2022, she expressed her support for the PM and made it clear she was not amongst those MPs elected in 2019 that were considering a rebellion in light of the partygate affair. She told the local Express and Star that, “The PM helped win us seats like mine, he got Brexit done and has pulled us through the pandemic”.
Richards is a supporter of transgender rights and has called on the government to reform the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.
She is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Cancer, Holocaust Memorial, Left Behind Neighbourhoods, Parkrun, Skills and Employment, and British Sikhs.
Email – nicola.richards.mp@parliament.uk
Website – www.nicolarichards.org.uk
Twitter – @Nicola4WBE
