Patrick Charles Martyn Nicholls (born 14 November 1948) is a British solicitor and politician who served as a Conservative MP for Teignbridge between 1983 and 2001.
A solicitor by profession and formerly an East Devon District Councillor, Nicholls was first elected to the House of Commons in 1983 at the age of 34, winning a comfortable majority over the nationally known Liberal Party candidate, John Alderson, who had resigned as Chief Constable of Devon & Cornwall specifically to contest the seat.
He was appointed to the Westminster Foundation for Democracy at its inception in 1992 and served on The North Atlantic Assembly and the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs.
In 1994, he was made a Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party and in 1997 was appointed the Shadow Fisheries Minister by the then Leader of the Opposition, William Hague.
After losing his seat in 2001, Nicholls became Chairman of The Young Britons Foundation, a research think-tank established in July 2003 to "help train tomorrow's centre-right leaders and activists today".