Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Keith Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Hypothetically, yes, but I hesitate to give the noble Lord a definite commitment on that, as my information on these points is substantially in answer to the point raised by the noble Baroness. But, if the noble Lord will permit me, in exploring these important points, I will make sure that the Ministry of Justice writes to him and that there is a meeting with the noble Baroness, as she sought, to discuss with her the future of this amendment. I hope that that answer will satisfy both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord Just to continue on that point, it is important to bear in mind that we are reviewing and engaging in consultation with various bodies. But we need to take into account the broad-ranging needs of the Ministry of Justice and to ensure that we have a service appropriate for the wide range of circumstances and the various commissioning bodies to which I have made reference. There are concerns that mandatory NRPSI membership may give unnecessary control over the supply chain, and the police interpretation contract does not require interpreters to be NRPSI registered. We need to complete a full and objective assessment of MoJ needs across the board and not to introduce NRPSI standards when we do not know what impact they might have on the overall justice system The Ministry of Justice is looking constantly to improve the service for users and to work collaboratively with interpreter membership organisations and language service providers to ensure that the short, medium and long-term service needs of the criminal justice system are met. Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service is starting up a language services future pipeline working group, which will focus on the issue of securing suitably qualified interpreters in the long term I will develop that point. As the single biggest public sector user of language services, we believe it is important for the Government to encourage new entrants into the interpreting profession and to provide them with appropriate opportunities to build up their experience levels and to maintain standards of excellence. We have an independent quality assurance supplier, which has recently developed a subsidised trainee scheme, encouraging qualification in languages that are in high demand in our courts. We will continue to work with it, and with other organisations, to improve our service and to ensure it provides access to suitably qualified interpreters in the future. The arrangements that we have in place are designed specifically to ensure that our courts and tribunals are supported by high-quality language service interpretation that meets the needs of all our court users, both now and in the future. I turn now to some of the submissions made by your Lordships in Committee. I fully accept the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds on the distinction between translation and interpreting. But on the submission made by the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Hogan-Howe, I return to the point that there is a wide range of functions which interpreting has to carry out. With the greatest of respect, each of those noble Lords answering on this point predicated their submission on the fact that we were talking about translation at the very highest level—at the most important level of translating a potentially complex criminal trial In response to point made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, again I accept that the single function of an interpreter in these circumstances is to act as a conduit by which English may be rendered into a foreign language and the foreign language rendered as accurately as it may be into English in order to assist the court. Again, that is at the very top end of the spectrum. Lower down, in simpler and more straightforward functions that I identified—the most elementary part of the range of needs that I discussed—it may well be that some well-meaning attempt to intervene and to assist, such as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, discussed, might be appropriate. I am thinking of the simple telephone inquiry that I referred to.