Better Prisons: Less Crime (Justice and Home Affairs Committee Report)

Baroness Bi Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bi (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I feel deeply honoured to be making my maiden speech today. I thank noble Lords on all sides of the House, as well as Black Rod and his team, the doorkeepers, police officers and all the other amazing staff for their warm welcome—not least in being so patient with me as I try to find my way around. As a former chair of the Barbican Centre Trust, I have been wondering whether we need yellow lines on the floor to help those of us who lack a sense of direction.

I thank my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon for her support, and my noble friend Lord McNicol and my noble and learned friend Lord Hermer, who introduced me to the House three weeks ago today, and I look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of my fellow new Peers.

I welcome the report of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, and the Government’s acceptance of many of its recommendations. The report reflects a compassionate approach to balancing the needs of the public, prisoners and staff. This is a welcome change to the rhetoric of ever-longer sentences and harsher conditions that has resulted in us having the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe. We seem to have forgotten Portia’s advice in “The Merchant of Venice” to season justice with mercy.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Timpson, the Minister, for meeting with me to discuss his department’s response to this important report. I would also like to thank him for his and his family’s long-standing leadership in providing employment to former prisoners, which is so important to reducing reoffending.

I decided to become a lawyer at the age of 14 because I cared passionately about human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law; I still do. However, when I finished university, I knew I could not support myself as a human rights lawyer without borrowing what seemed to me at the time to be an unimaginably large sum. I discovered that City law firms paid to train their lawyers, and so that is the route I took. I specialised in international debt capital markets and have had a wonderful career, working with clients and colleagues across the world. This has given me a valuable insight into the needs of investors and our position in an increasingly competitive world. I also advise on ethical finance, including green and social bonds, which are a growing segment of the market, and combine my focus on finance with making a difference. I note, in the context of this debate, that the world’s first social bond was issued to reduce reoffending rates at HMP Peterborough.

The last time I felt almost as proud as I do today was in 2018, when I was elected by my partners to be the chair of our law firm, Norton Rose Fulbright, as the first woman and ethnic minority person to hold that role since the firm was established in 1794. My election reflected the huge changes that have taken place in the City since I arrived in 1990, when there were very few people who looked like me or who came from my background. It has been a privilege to be a part of the City for over 35 years. I am keen to ensure that it remains competitive and retains its position as the leading international financial centre, providing a home for talented people of all kinds. That requires us to be an outward-looking, confident society that abides by the rule of law.

I grew up in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, and had assumed that we had moved past the racism and bigotry that I experienced then. In recent years I have seen, with increasing concern, the cynical manipulation of legitimate concerns about declining living standards, inadequate infrastructure and poorly funded public services into a targeting of minority groups who are blamed for wider societal failings.

Those of us who believe in equal rights, a globally connected world and the rules-based order have to accept that the argument is not won, and we must fight harder and better for our values. Yet there are so many things for us all to be proud of. I have the privilege of being vice-chair of the Disasters Emergency Committee, and I am humbled by the generosity and compassion of the British public, who in the last four years have donated over £700 million to its appeals—and that in the midst of a cost of living crisis.

Until very recently, I was chair of the Patchwork Foundation, which supports young people interested in civic society. Each year, as a new cohort of patchworkers arrive, I am deeply encouraged by the passion and principles of our young people who are determined to make the world a better place. I hope that by working with noble Lords across the House I can play my part in helping the patchworkers to achieve that better world and, along the way, satisfy the spirit of the 14 year-old who wanted to be a lawyer so that she could help people.