Dame Vera Baird DBE KC
Patron of Respect
Dame Vera Baird DBE KC is Chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. She is a barrister and politician who has held roles as a Government Minister, Police and Crime Commissioner, and Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales.
She practised as a criminal barrister before becoming MP for Redcar between 2001 and 2010. From 2006, she was a Minister in the Department of Constitutional Affairs (now the Ministry of Justice) and was the Solicitor General for England and Wales from 2007 to 2010.
Dame Vera served as the Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria from 2012 to 2019 and was Chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners in 2016 as well as its National Lead for Supporting Victims until 2019, when she was appointed as Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, a post she held, until resigning in September 2022.
From 2022 to 2024, she was a Senior Special Adviser to the Shadow Labour Women and Equalities team at Westminster, and Independent Expert Adviser on justice devolution to the Welsh Government.
She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to women and equality. She is a member of the Women’s Justice Board.
Dame Vera is a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Mannheim Centre at the London School of Economics, an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda’s College Oxford, Hon Professor of Law at the Universities of Exeter & Newcastle, and an Honorary Doctor of the Universities of Loughborough and Northumbria.
She is the Patron of Respect, a Patron of Operation Encompass, and a Board member of the charity Revolving Doors.
She is the author of many articles, chapters and reports, most recently the Baird Review into Greater Manchester Police.
