https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2022-01-12a.1145.1
Amendment 104FD
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill - Report
(5th Day) – in the House of Lords at 7:30 pm on 12th January 2022.
Baroness Coussins
Crossbench
My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as
vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and co-chair of the All-Party
Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages.
I am very grateful indeed to the Minister for the
interest he has taken in the issue of court interpreters and my concerns about
the weaknesses of the present system, as well as for his willingness to meet
several times and discuss candidly the detail of my amendment. This dialogue has
been very constructive and leads me to be hopeful that we can reach a positive
outcome.
My amendment seeks to establish minimum standards
for court interpreters based on their qualifications, experience and
registration with the National Register of Public Service Interpreters—NRPSI.
Obviously, I am not going to repeat the detail of the case I set out in
Committee, but perhaps I could just comment on the response I had at that stage
from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton.
There seemed to be three main reasons for rejecting
my amendment. The first was that the MoJ system is already fit for purpose. For
example, the noble and learned Lord said:
“All interpreters are required to complete a
justice system-specific training course before they are permitted to join the
register.”—[Official Report, 22/11/21; col. 659.]
This refers to the MoJ’s register. My
understanding, however, is that that course takes four hours to complete, which
does not strike me as remotely adequate for such potentially demanding and
specialist work. It remains the case that the current MoJ register will admit
people who would not be considered sufficiently qualified or experienced to be
on the NRPSI—nor, indeed, on the Police Approved Interpreters and Translators
scheme. The DPSI at level 6 is considered by all the specialist professional
bodies in the field to be the correct minimum qualification for any court
interpreting work.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, also
claimed that the MoJ system is fit for purpose because the complaint rate is
less than 1%. I had claimed that the failure rate following spot checks was 50%
but, in our subsequent meetings and correspondence, the noble Lord, Lord
Wolfson, has clarified that the 50% figure I quoted in Committee applied only
to referrals of quality-based complaints, and that the overall failure rate is
actually 5% of all assessments. I still think that a failure rate of 50% after
a referral from a court or mystery shop is unacceptably high. I would also
contend that even an overall rate of 5% out of hundreds of thousands of
assignments each year could potentially lead to a significant drain on the
public purse through the costs of rescheduling adjourned hearings or keeping
defendants in custody for longer—not to mention the avoidable stress and
confusion for victims, defendants and witnesses.
Secondly, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart,
thought that my amendment fell short because it would not be right to take a
one-size-fits-all approach, given that there are various levels of case
complexity. But I agree with that: the point is explicitly acknowledged in my
amendment, which specifies that the number of hours’ experience required should
reflect case complexity and, crucially, should be agreed between the department
and “relevant professional bodies”. In discussions with the noble Lord, Lord
Wolfson, over the past few weeks, it has been repeatedly pointed out to those
of us supporting this amendment that there are no fewer than 1,000 different
types of assignment. The mind boggles—well, mine does anyway. I would certainly
love to see a list spelling out exactly what those 1,000 different categories
are.
Thirdly, the obstacle of the rules on public
procurement was raised as a reason why my amendment’s provision for the NRPSI
registration was unacceptable. I still find this a bit odd and confusing as an
argument, as the NRPSI is not a membership organisation, nor a supplier. It is
worth remembering that it was established at the request of the judiciary in
the first place after the interpreting calamity of the Begum case. It is surely
just akin to the professional registers in many other fields, such as teaching,
medicine or law, from which we would always expect and require practitioners to
be drawn. There appears to be at least one significant precedent in that the Metropolitan
Police Service mandates that all its listed interpreters must have continuous
NRPSI registration. Of its annual 25,000 face-to-face assigned interpreters,
only 2.5% are not NRPSI registered, and then for a very good reason—for
example, to do with the need for a rare language speaker or the need for a
super-speedy appointment in highly urgent or dangerous situations.
I accept, of course, that this whole system is
complex and that there are inherent challenges to any solution that I have not
touched on today, such as the supply chain of interpreters. I also acknowledge
that the wording of my amendment may not be perfect, although I have tweaked it
since Committee to try to build in a transition period, as suggested in
Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. But I have been encouraged by the
approach of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, in our discussions in that he
acknowledges that if there are improvements that could or should be made, it
would be sensible for them to be made before the current contract is due to be
retendered in 2023. The challenge, of course, is to get to the bottom of
precisely what those improvements are, and I am extremely concerned that there
should be no more delay in establishing and achieving them than absolutely
necessary. The current contract expires in October 2023, so presumably a
revised tender will need to be issued some months before that in order to
achieve a seamless transition.
With this in mind, we raised with the Minister the
possible option of conducting a detailed and independent inquiry into exactly
what the standards of qualifications and experience and other matters should
be. I am hopeful that the Minister might be able to say something about that
proposal when he comes to reply today. Such an inquiry would need to be
conducted on a genuinely independent basis and cover all aspects of the MoJ’s
responsibility for interpreting services, with a commitment to apply its
findings to the next contract. I believe that such an independent inquiry would
also have the credibility to help attract back into public service the many
hundreds of professional interpreters who have left because of low pay, bad
conditions or a lack of acknowledgement of their professional status. This
exercise would have the potential to make a long-term strategic impact on the
service, as well as knocking into shape the terms of the next contract. I look
forward to the Minister’s response and beg to move.
Lord Wolfson
of Tredegar The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice
[…]
This amendment would restrict the Ministry of Justice
to appointing in our courts and tribunals only interpreters who are registered
on the National Register of Public Service Interpreters and who possess a level
6 diploma in public service interpreting or comply with the national register’s
rare language status protocols. I place on record at the outset my thanks to
the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord
Hogan-Howe, and others for their time engaging with me.
This is a very important issue. The noble Lord,
Lord Berkeley of Knighton, noted that it goes to compassion, which is correct.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, said, it also goes to
the heart of the justice process. Anyone who has done a case with interpreters
knows how important their role is. Indeed, I remember one case where, when the
witness answered a question of mine, it was interpreted through a language I
knew, and I knew that it had been interpreted wrongly. The judge also picked up
that the interpretation was wrong and the witness himself criticised the
interpretation, thus illustrating that the presence of the interpreter was
unnecessary, and they were dispensed with.
We currently commission the service of interpreters
for our courts and tribunals through our contracted service providers,
thebigword and Clarion interpreting. The contract has a clearly defined list of
qualifications, skills, experience and vetting requirements interpreters must
meet, which have been designed to meet the particular needs of the justice
system. The highest complexity level has qualification criteria comparable to
those set by the NRPSI. They are sourced from the MoJ register, which is
audited by an independent language service provider, The Language Shop. All
interpreters must have 100 hours of experience and complete a justice
system-specific training course before they can join the register.
As the noble Baroness said, the overall failure
rate of all quality assurance assessments remains low, at 5%. We believe that
illustrates the effectiveness of the auditing measures. Complaints about
quality are also carefully monitored and independently assessed by The Language
Shop. The complaint rate remains low, at less than 1%.
I am confident that there are no systemic quality
issues with the current arrangements. None the less, I discussed this in some
detail with the noble Baroness and others and we want to improve the quality of
the service we provide, if that is possible, right across the justice system.
That is why I am commissioning a full independent review of our existing
qualifications and standards and the requirements for each type of assignment
our contract covers. There are over 1,000 of these—I do not have a list to
hand. This will also consider experience levels and rare language requirements.
The review will be completed in time to inform the retendering of our contracts
in 2023. It will establish a detailed framework of the standards and
qualifications required for all assignments covered by the contracts, with
clear explanations and justifications for each. The aim is to ensure that our
contracts continue to meet the demands of all our court users.
We will continue to consult external stakeholders,
including the NRPSI—its input is highly valued. We will learn from other
schemes, including the police-approved interpreter and translation scheme,
which adopts a level 6 diploma in public service interpreting as a minimum
qualification standard, but with safeguards to allow for exceptions as needed
to ensure timeliness in progressing a case.
We understand that there are issues about the
availability of NRPSI-registered interpreters in some parts of the country—40%
of them are based in London. Under our current arrangements, we can control and
direct recruitment for our register based on geographical and language needs.
This is tied in to the supplier’s obligation to fulfil bookings and ensures
that we can dictate recruitment trends to meet our requirements.
I cannot say at this stage whether the police-approved
interpreter and translation scheme would be suitable for the Ministry of
Justice. We are concerned not to have a one-size-fits-all approach; even within
a court setting, interpreting in a criminal court is quite different from
interpreting, for example, in the family jurisdiction. It is not only court
settings; there is telephone interpreting for court custody officers, and
service centres require interpreting assistance to support court users paying
fines or responding to general inquiries. However, we will look at the outcome
of the review. All the options we consider will need to be fully costed in
accordance with government policy for large government procurements to ensure
value for money for the taxpayer.
The review will be undertaken. We have already
started some work; we want to establish the most appropriate and cost-effective
solution, one which meets the current and future needs of the justice system
and promotes the continued development and progression of new entrants into the
interpreting profession. With renewed thanks to the noble Baroness for her time
and the discussions we have had, including on the option of a full independent
review, which I hope I have set out clearly, I respectfully urge her to
withdraw the amendment.
Baroness
Coussins Crossbench
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to
this debate. I especially offer my thanks to the Minister and warmly welcome
his decision to commission a full independent inquiry into the qualifications,
experience and overall standards of all the different types of interpreters for
court work. I look forward to seeing the terms of reference, the timetable and other
details of this inquiry. I feel optimistic that professional bodies in the
field will also feel encouraged by this development and welcome the decision.
With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
