That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Public Services Committee Lost in translation? Interpreting services in the courts (2nd Report, HL Paper 87).
My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this debate on the Public Services Committee’s report, Lost in Translation? Interpreting Services in the Courts. Before doing so, I congratulate the new Minister on her appointment. I understand that this is the first of her parliamentary appearances; we are pleased about that. We have set a bit of a habit here because, when Minister Sackman came to speak to our committee, she had been in her post for two weeks, so we had exactly the same situation. The only good news from that Minister’s point of view, I suppose, is that she is still there, which stands us in good stead in terms of the length of service of the Minister here. We welcome the Minister to her post and we hope that she will take the opportunity to concentrate and focus on this, her first report, to see whether we can make a real difference.
I begin by thanking our committee team: Dan Hepworth; Tom Burke; Claire Coast-Smith; Clayton Gurney; Gemma Swan, who was our POST student and was very good; and Lara Orija. I also thank the officials at the MoJ and the Courts Service, who were unstintingly helpful and timely; the committee cannot say that about every government department, so we are very grateful. Although we have not always agreed with them, we have appreciated the working partnership that they have had with our committee clerk and their team.
This is an important part of the justice system, but it is not a large part. There will be some courts that do not make much use of translators, and there will be some for whom it is an everyday occurrence. Together, there are 17,000 bookings a month in more than 150 possible languages, so, for the people whose lives and cases are affected by this issue, it is absolutely crucial and 100% important. If it goes wrong, it not only has an impact on the people concerned, such as the accused and defendants, but leads to an unravelling in the way in which the courts work in terms of delayed cases and having to hear cases again.
The committee does not underestimate the difficulty of this service. If we had been talking about this 10, 15 or 20 years ago, the languages that were used most would have been different from what they are now. This is a changing game and I appreciate that that must make it difficult to make sure that the right people with the right skills are in the right place at the right time. The way in which the judicial system works means that 27% of the bookings are made only 24 hours before a case is heard, with 9% made only three hours before. That is difficult. To make that work efficiently and effectively, you need to be on top of the administration and you need to have a good cadre of people to call on.
I pay tribute to the translators. They are a hugely committed and talented group of people. The evidence that they gave us, particularly in the round tables we held with them, was important; indeed, it was instrumental in our findings. Although members of the committee who will speak today and the report have their criticisms, they are not of the translators but of the system. That is an important point to make.
My Lords, I congratulate our chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for an excellent summary of our report and the flaws that we found in the court interpretation system. I also welcome the Minister to her position. I am looking forward to hearing what she has to say. It is a pity that at her first official outing she will defend some of the things that we found indefensible but, no doubt, she will make an excellent job of it.
The overwhelming conclusion that we all reached is summed up in paragraph 41 of our report:
“There is a clear disconnect between what the government hopes is happening, what the companies contracted to deliver the services believe is happening, and what frontline interpreters and legal professionals report is happening with interpreting services in the courts”.
That message came through time and time again. We had evidence that interpreters and translators can lose significant amounts of money, with limited options to find alternative work when cases are delayed or cancelled. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, described some of those. Current provisions such as the two-hour guaranteed payment and cancellation payments are not adequate, especially when interpreters are booked for extended periods of time.
However, the MoJ view is that the two-hour minimum booking provides a balance between attracting and supporting interpreters to take bookings while maintaining value for money for the MoJ. Of course, it certainly provides value for the MoJ but at the expense of interpreters, who can lose a whole day’s pay.
We were critical of data collection, which we felt did not present a full picture of the problems of interpretation in the courts and could lead or had led to miscarriages of justice. The MoJ view was that there were no known instances of miscarriages of justice because of flaws in interpretation. But if you have inadequate data to begin with, how on earth can you tell? Also, if the interpreter is misinterpreting, who is to know? The MoJ view is that it is up to the judge and lawyers to complain about interpretation faults. But the dynamics of the court system is that unless the interpreter is, say, rolling around stone drunk or incapable, no one will check that the interpreted words are exactly right.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who identified so many of the problems in the courts system that impact on the interpreting service. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for chairing our inquiry so effectively and for having explained clearly the conclusions we reached as a committee. I thank too those who gave evidence to us and the committee team who did the research and drafted our report so comprehensively.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, who said to the Minister at the end of her speech that the Minister should not sign off the new contract as a job already done, on the grounds that it is not. I concur with that.
I thought when we started our work that we would learn of cases of miscarriage of justice, or potential miscarriages of justice, caused by poor interpretation. But it did not turn out like that, because the evidence is not collected through effective quality-assurance systems to tell us the answer. Those providing the service think it runs well and those delivering the service—the interpreters doing the work—generally speaking do not.
From the interpreters, we heard too many examples of poor treatment. Some travelled long distances to find trials cancelled without fair remuneration for their time and travel costs. There were many complaints of poor pay rates and inadequate increases for inflation over the period of the outsourced contract. It is no surprise that interpreting the courts is not seen as a desirable career path for many interpreters to develop.
When the Government outsourced the contract 10 years ago, it undoubtedly reduced costs but—I concluded, as we listened to the evidence—this was to the disbenefit of interpreters and led to poorer service delivery overall. For example, in the first nine months of 2024, there were over 600 trial postponements because of a lack of interpreter support. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, explained, concerns were expressed to us by the Bar Council and the Law Society, which told us that the overall quality and number of interpreters were insufficient. This meant that there could be a risk to public trust in the justice system. The Bar Council also told us that there had been a decline in the quality of the service in recent years.
My Lords, I start by thanking the committee en bloc for the important work that it has done in looking at this subject which, as has already been observed, is something of a Cinderella in the justice system. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for her overview and introduction to the work of the committee.
It is a particular pleasure to see the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, in her place on her first outing as Minister. She brings enormously wide experience of the criminal law, in particular from sitting in the busiest criminal court in London until, I think, the day before she was nominated for a peerage. I suspect that the noble Baroness has seen more interpreters in action in recent years than the rest of us put together. It is some years since I was in the position of seeing interpreters at first instance.
All who have sat in courts and tribunals will have a mixed experience of interpreters. Many are excellent, but some are less so. But now is not the time for war stories, which any judge or practitioner would be happy to share in slower times.
Interpreters are needed in many criminal cases, even for participants who understand and can speak in conversational English. It is vital for anyone involved in legal proceedings, whether they be criminal, family, civil or tribunals, to understand what is going on and, if they are giving evidence, for the court or tribunal to understand what they are saying. There is also a need for participants to be able to communicate with their lawyers if they do not speak English. Some family cases and, more widely, when necessary, other civil and tribunal cases are provided with interpreters at public expense, as are criminal cases, but one should not overlook the fact that very large volumes of interpretation services are secured privately by litigants’ solicitors on their behalf.
I of course welcome any steps taken to improve across the board the standards of interpretation in our courts. As has been observed, the range of languages that require interpretation grows and changes on a monthly and yearly basis. I also welcome the efforts suggested by the committee to improve the standing and treatment of interpreters. Like the committee, I am confident that the contractual provisions need careful attention.
My Lords, I wonder whether noble Lords can remember their first time in the Chamber or in the other place. My own memory is that it was architecturally imposing, with unfamiliar rituals; it left me with a sense of awe and, frankly, a bit of anxiety on that first day.
This led me to think of an accused person or a defendant going into a courtroom for the first time and experiencing some of the same feelings, with impressive buildings and people in strange costumes—and, of course, anxiety. For them, however, it is different. For us, a slip might have been slightly embarrassing, but they do not know what is going on because they cannot speak English. Therefore, to make that work, we must ensure that the evidence is translated properly.
I think it was Mr Jaggers, Dickens’ favourite lawyer, who said it was not about how it looks but about the evidence. How we get that evidence there is clear—the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, gave us the numbers and statistics—but the point I want to make is that we should give some recognition to the fact that it is complicated. They do a good job. I do not think that we should diss these people. There is a problem of culture—which I will come to—but, under the skilful chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and with the support of both our clerk, Dan, and our researcher, Tom, the committee undertook to try to understand what was going on, not so much to mark the homework of the Courts Service but to take a forward-looking view: what things could we draw attention to that would actually change things, rather than going back over old ground?
In some ways, you could say that it was partly encouraging. People are making it work, to some degree. It is not as good as it could be but, from a legal point of view, it is a fact that the Court of Appeal has not overturned a judgment in the past 20 years because of mistranslation. So, despite the fact that the data may not be good or accurate, and the complaints system is there, at the moment, we have not had a major collapse on that issue. So we found some encouraging things, and we recognised how difficult it was.
My Lords, I warmly welcome this report and begin by declaring my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Modern Languages, and honorary president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, both of which submitted evidence to the committee’s inquiry. I am very glad to say that many of our concerns were shared by the committee and are reflected in its recommendations.
My overriding concerns are twofold: first, to ensure equal access to justice for everyone caught up in the criminal justice system, be they defendant, witness or victim; and, secondly, to secure a step change in the way that public service interpreters—PSIs—are acknowledged, treated, respected and rewarded. As we have heard, they are highly skilled and qualified professionals, yet their work is currently valued on a par with unskilled jobs. Their pay starts at £20 an hour, rising to a magnificent £26 an hour for complex cases, yet they are working alongside solicitors, whose lowest hourly rate recommended by government guidelines is £196.
Progress on both my overriding concerns is achievable, if the Government agree not only to accept but to act on the committee’s recommendations and within the timeframe specified; I would be grateful for the Minister’s assurance on that. Timing, indeed urgency, is of the essence, because the two issues—of equal access to justice and the status of PSIs—are of course inextricably linked. We are seeing disheartened, disillusioned, exhausted qualified interpreters reluctantly leaving the public sector every month, because they cannot afford to live within the terms and conditions on offer. This results in an ever-increasing risk of individuals in courts and tribunals having their access to justice delayed, denied or diminished.
The need for a clear commitment from government on the timeline for a plan, with timebound milestones for ensuring a pipeline of PSIs qualified at level 6, is critical, and the committee has requested progress updates every six months. Can the Minister undertake to provide these? Similarly, there is an immediate need for better and fuller data collection to ensure that we have a more complete picture of the effectiveness or otherwise of court interpreting services and the quality-assurance regime.
My Lords, I congratulate the new Minister and wish her well in her—I hope—long career. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, pointed out, our committee has had some success with newly-appointed Ministers lasting a little longer than some colleagues.
The use of translation services in the public sector is of ongoing interest. It has been a pleasure to serve on the Public Services Committee under the excellent leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and to be involved in the publication of this report. My focus today is going to be on the final set of recommendations on artificial intelligence, as already mentioned by one or two noble Lords.
Overall, a huge problem for the committee is the quality and availability of accurate data, not just in this report but in others we have made. Nevertheless, when it comes to our legal system, equal access to justice is a fundamental principle. That means providing high-quality interpretation and translation services to individuals when it is needed. The current level of services sometimes falls short and can present a risk to justice and potentially increase the burden on the court system.
As a result, the committee’s report Lost in Translation? is timely, especially as the Ministry of Justice is currently renegotiating a contract for language services. It has been a pleasure to work on the report with colleagues from across the House and the report contains many recommendations that I hope the Government will draw on. These include improving performance data, quality assurance and the workforce—all of which offer practical solutions that I hope the Government will look at seriously.
Today I want to focus on what I regard as potentially the most transformational issues that we considered: the role of new technology and, in particular, AI. There are numerous benefits that it can offer, from increasing the availability and quality of interpretation to reducing the cost to the taxpayer. Every part of the public sector is under pressure and will need to look for savings. AI could transform interpreting in our courts.
My Lords, I am grateful to have the opportunity to make a brief contribution, though it will take more than five minutes, on this report on interpretation and translation services in the courts. I welcome the new Minister and assure her that, of all the committees in this House, this is the one that provides excellent ideas, so that she can become a very successful Minister.
I confess that most of my interest during the inquiry was in how using technology, in particular AI, would resolve the challenge of the growing shortage of interpreters. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for her patience and excellent chairmanship of the inquiry and the committee’s members and staff, who had to put up with my often confusing proposals.
The final report explained the significant challenges facing court services and the growing concern and disillusionment of interpreters, who quite frankly were being treated with unacceptable levels of support, both financially and practically. To be fair, the Minister’s contribution to the government response to the report accepted the need to modify expense, time and transport allocations for translators and for them to have access to the courts as professional colleagues, not merely members of the public. However, the real answers will become clear only when the new contract is produced, as the MoJ and the leading supply organisations have indicated.
Here lies the biggest challenge so far in response to the committee’s report. Throughout our inquiry, virtually every major criticism was answered by the future publication of a new contract, yet to date neither Parliament, the courts nor interpreters have been given sight of the future arrangements. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, we have seen some indications that the new contract will deliver improvements, particularly to strengthening qualifications—we agree on level 6—but I ask the Minister whether level 3 qualifications should be sufficient for community work and whether that would apply to asylum applications, which have been a huge issue recently. Sadly, the Government appear to have cast aside the need to create a minimum rate for interpreters and an increased rate when bookings are cancelled. However, as both the previous and present Governments have used the new contract as a saving grace, I hope that early indications are wrong. I will let others comment more sophisticatedly on that challenge.
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The strange thing about this inquiry was that, as one often finds, it was like talking to groups of people who are describing totally different things. You think, “Unless we can get to the point where they’re describing the same thing, no progress will be made”. What we got here, in terms of differences of opinion, was the Minister saying, “It’s not perfect but it’s doing a solid job. There’s a low number of complaints and a high fulfilment rate”. We also had thebigword—the contractor that runs the service—saying that things were done
“consistently within the minimum service rates”
when describing how it works. However, let us look at the lawyers—the other bit of the judicial system—who work on that. The Bar Council said:
“Although there are committed and talented interpreters … the overall standard is not acceptable and not delivering justice”.
The Magistrates’ Association noted
“the frequent failure to book interpreters, leading to delays”.
If we then talk to the translators, they describe a set of circumstances that are inappropriate for any group of workers, let alone for people with such a key role in one of our most important public services. I imagine that some members of the Select Committee, and others speaking here today, will talk about the conditions for interpreters, because that underpins a lot of what is going wrong in the service.
I do not want to go over the facts and figures. Instead, I will give two examples from the interpreters who gave evidence, which have stayed in my mind and which sum up what happens. The first was about not being valued, which came from an interpreter in response in an unrelated question; we did not ask a question about that. I did not realise that if an interpreter goes to the court to do their job, they queue with the public and wait until the doors to the public are open before they get into the court. Everyone else connected with the case—the judges, barristers, magistrates and court clerks—goes in through the staff entrance. That is utterly appalling and sums up what is wrong with the culture. Just think what message that gives about their importance and value. Imagine how that hampers their job: if they are at the end of the queue, the time that they might have had—for example, to talk to the barrister, to meet their client or to check some legal nicety—is absolutely gone.
I looked at the Minister’s MoJ staff who are present for this debate today. There are four of them; I could not spot the fourth, but at least two have day passes. They have not been right the way through the security system. They do not have passes like the rest of their staff—only the one at the end has a full pass; the others have day passes. If the MoJ can provide day passes for their staff to support them in this Committee, why can they not arrange for the courts to organise day passes for interpreters to do their job effectively with the people with whom they work?
The second example was about pay. It was the story of one man who had to travel a long way to do his job; I think it was in Wales. He had a language that was not in frequent use. Because of the timing of the case, he booked trains to go and to come back, and they had to be at peak times; I think he was going from London to Cardiff. The night before, the case was cancelled. He got one hour’s pay, but he did not get the travel cost, and so the one hour’s pay did not cover the cost of his train fare. Why would he do it again? Why would he respond to any request to do that again?
Those examples are anecdotal, but they are evidence. Those issues are repeated time and time again. There are specific problems with pay and travel, but the overall issues always come down to the system’s view of the role that these people play in our court system—and that is what has to change.
We therefore have a difference of view. We have people in the same system who are meant to be jointly delivering the same service, but who describe that service in very different ways. It is difficult to work out why that is the case. One reason is that the data and the quality system do not provide all the accurate information that is needed. If you look at the figures, you could say that they are not bad; you could say that there has been an improvement in the last quarter or that there has been a complaint in only 1% of cases. However, if you look deeper at the figures, you will see that many statistics do not get reported.
There are also inconsistencies and contradictions in that data; I will mention just two. First, we never got an answer to the question as to why the unfulfilled requests are higher than the number of ineffective trials. If they did not get an interpreter, how did the case go ahead? Who did they use to do the interpretation? Secondly, we never got an answer to the question as to why off-contract bookings are higher than the number of unfulfilled requests. You are not meant to go to an off-contract booking unless you cannot fill the role with someone from the primary contractor, so how did that also go wrong?
On the quality control system and 1% level of complaints, quite honestly the Bar Council and magistrates were bewildered that they should ever finish a case at lunchtime, rush off to the next case in the afternoon and have time to make a complaint that the interpreter had not turned up in between. That data is not capturing the reality of what is happening in the interpretation service. We cannot rely on those figures and it is no good quoting them back and saying that all is well in the world of courts and interpreters. The Government have to ask themselves the difficult questions.
We welcome some of the Government’s responses, including more coherent sets of data, refreshed guidance, improved welfare provision and strengthening safeguarding proposals. We welcome all those. There is a bit of me that thinks that that was the easy bit and a lot of me that thinks that the difficult bits were not responded to as positively as that. We welcome their commitment to Ann Carlisle’s report on qualifications, but it means that 80% of cases will need level 6 qualifications and 20% will need level 3. I have heard nothing yet to reassure me that the system, thebigword and the contractors will have anything place in as quick a time as is necessary.
I turn now to the contract, because it is on the contract that all rests. The reason we did not get answers on pay, conditions and travel expenses is that every answer from the department is, “It’s in the contract. It’s up to the contractor. It’s up to whoever wins the contract”. We have to remember that, prior to 2012, it was delivered centrally as a national agreement. This contracting and outsourcing has not had an easy start. It did not go well in 2012—the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Commission have made that point—and the present contract sits in that context. It had to be very good to wipe from people’s minds that memory of a very bad start.
I will talk a bit about the problems with contracting out and why this is one of the sources of what is going wrong. I will give one example, which ties in with the other things that we have talked about. The contract was let to this provider in 2016. There has been no pay increase for interpreters since then—not one pay increase from 2016 until now. I do not know another group of workers for whom that is the case. We are not against outsourcing, or the market, but we are against outsourcing done badly. That is an important point that the committee was keen to make. The contract allows the MoJ and the courts to distance themselves from the reality of what is happening on the ground.
In their responses, the Government said that suppliers are best placed to set rules, suppliers are the experts and suppliers have gone in for dynamic pricing. This is a public service. You can outsource and you can let the market guide you, but if you run a public service, you cannot abdicate your responsibility for making sure that it is universally good and delivering an excellent level of provision for every single person whose life it protects. That is why they cannot answer on pay and travel costs. We have had no response at all other than, “It is going to be left to the market, and we trust the provider”.
I just gently say to the Minister that I hope that, before that contract is signed, she has at least two assurances. An inflation increase has been guaranteed in the contract year on year but, despite our best efforts, we have no assurance that that increase will be paid to the translators as a salary increase. Be absolutely sure, before it is signed, that that is an agreement to pay a salary increase and not just to pay the successful contractor more.
I also want to know what the percentage of profit is on the contract compared to the amount going to running the service. I worry about dynamic pricing, which was a bit of a strange phrase until it started being used for pop concerts. My understanding of dynamic pricing is that somebody always loses. That is the nature of it. I want to know who the losers are in the dynamic pricing that the ministry is quite happy to use here.
This is important. The contract will go until 2030. Whatever is decided cannot be changed between now and the end of this decade. I very much hope that the Minister, given her background, what I know of her and that this is her first debate, will want to look at this contract again. I know that it is at the negotiation stage, but please do not sign it off as a job already done. Please seize it as an opportunity of perhaps doing something better. I am delighted to be able to move the Motion on this report and look forward to people’s contributions.
The MoJ says that it is up to the courts to manage all aspects of the case. That leads to the innate judicial arrogance that we see in the treatment of interpreters, who are regarded as of little consequence in the courts. For example, on the treatment of the interpreter workforce, we said that in some cases interpreters are not treated as professionals working within the court and are not considered key members in the running of the court. Interpreters are treated like members of the public and are not kept up to date on court logistics. Furthermore, we said that interpreters are not given appropriate information about potentially long, complex or technical court cases that may require extra preparation and resources by the interpreter ahead of time.
We said in our report that the Government should provide guidance to ensure that interpreters’ key role in court proceedings is recognised and that His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service provides information about cases ahead of time in order to improve interpreters’ well-being and ensure that they can make necessary preparations. Interpreters told us that the police, in the main, treated them far better than the lawyers in the courts. In particular, the police would brief interpreters in advance that there might be, say, technical forensic terms to be translated so that they could swot up beforehand—no such treatment in the courts.
I accept that in a court where no interpretation is required, the most important people in the room are the judge and the lawyers questioning the accused and the witnesses. But where an interpreter is used, that interpreter becomes by far the most important person in the court. It is the interpreter who will translate the lawyers’ questions for the witness or the accused and then translate back the answers. In those cases, no one is more important than the interpreters and they should be given the respect and facilities that they need, like any of the lawyers, and not treated like a tea lady. Saying that it is up to the judge to manage the court is not good enough. Interpreters must be given advance warning of the broad nature of the case, whether it is a violent crime with technical medical forensic terms, or financial crime with its own vocabulary, or any other specialist case.
We said that the Government should introduce detailed audio equipment, including sound booths for interpreters, as part of court refurbishments, and provide appropriate portable equipment for unrefurbished courts. I accept that the main obstacle here is cost and that many courts would need some fairly extensive investment in audio technology. But the price of that kit is falling all the time and the quality is increasing exponentially.
Now the Ministry of Justice is in favour of it, but I wonder whether it is facing lawyer pushback and not going flat-out on this technology. I say that because the MoJ response, in paragraph 18.5, was:
“We will review the use of this equipment and promote its use where appropriate, within a 6-month period”.
That rather contradicts its comments in the preceding paragraph that
“the majority of courts and tribunals have the tools to support remote attendance should that be appropriate, and we are improving the equipment to enable this more widely”.
Then there is the statement that
“the decision on whether remote interpreting can be utilised in a hearing remains for the judiciary”.
Why? On what basis does a judge make a decision not to use remote interpreting facilities? Is it based on his technical analysis of the quality of the recordings or the locations, or on his personal preference that he does not like it and wants to see the bodies in court?
I suggest that this is not a decision for a judge. The Ministry of Justice must do a technical assessment of courts and pronounce which ones have good enough audio equipment, and also at the interpreter ends, for remote to be used at all times in that courtroom. It should be a technical assessment for the MoJ to make, not a judge.
In conclusion, the impressions I got from the MoJ were twofold: first, a fear of challenging old-fashioned judicial and lawyer behaviour that is causing inefficiencies. We have not finished taking evidence or written our report yet, but we are doing an inquiry at the moment and courts are able to see and hear top-quality digital audio and video recordings of police interviews. But the lawyers and the CPS insist on having them transcribed and then act them out in court. The technology is a million times better than in 1980, but the courts are still stuck in their Rumpole of the Bailey time warp.
The other impression I get is that the MoJ thought that it was doing everything rather well and right: that it knew what it was doing and there were no real problems with interpretation, or the concerns raised by interpreters. As we say in our report, and I conclude with my opening remarks, this investigation revealed a disconnect between what the MoJ thought it was buying, what the providers thought they were supplying and what the interpreters were having to do on the ground. That disconnect still prevails, I am afraid.
For that reason, those pressing for a mandatory qualification for interpreters at higher levels than presently apply must be right. It must also be right for pay rates for interpreters to increase in line with the level of qualification held. High-quality interpreters should not have to look for off-contract court interpretation jobs, which may offer twice as much as they might receive for a normal contract job. I do not think that GCSE level 3 is sufficient for a court interpreter and I think that the Government need to agree minimum pay rates for interpreters to ensure that what they receive is fair and reasonable.
Court interpreters should also be treated as professionals. We have heard quite a bit about that already from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. However, I too was concerned to hear that working in police stations was seen as more welcoming, with a room to wait in and a proper welcome. In the courts, they are being treated as a member of the general public. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, who said that this was just not acceptable.
I cannot recall any witness to our inquiry saying that the system worked well. The recent increase to the two-hour minimum payment for an interpreter, however long or short the case, is welcome, but the Government have an obligation to address poor pay rates generally and to drive up quality. They need to deliver stronger quality assurance, better statistics and better pay rates to give us confidence in the courts’ interpreting services.
At the very end of her introductory speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, asked the Minister whether something might be said, either in reply or perhaps later, on the profit levels deriving from the contract and the role of dynamic pricing. When we took evidence, I got the impression, and still have the impression, that too much is hidden behind the scenes. It is not public information and I believe that the public have an entitlement to know it.
I wish to focus for a minute or two on technology and interpretation. In June 2018, I gave a lecture to the British and Irish Legal Information Institute on technology and the courts. I mention it not to encourage any noble Lord to trouble to find it and read it, but in a throwaway couple of lines I suggested that, with the use of technology, within a very few years high-quality simultaneous translation would be available: both translation which produces a text and translation that would be vocalised by technology. I added that, at the time, 2018, we were in the technological equivalent of the steam age—others had described it as the stone age—and that things would improve. I soon learned of the proliferation of bodies representing the interests of interpreters. All of them got in touch very quickly to tell me how wrong I was and, had I been on any of their Christmas card lists, I fear I would have been struck off.
Now we are seven years on and I confess my mild disappointment at the relatively small amount of space given to this issue by the committee and again, if I may say so, the rather dismissive response from the Government on this aspect. The reality is that those who represent interpreters are likely to be lukewarm about technology being used for translation and interpretation and, as has already been alluded to, the legal profession is not renowned for embracing change. However, technology really has moved on. Voice recognition software is now pretty reliable. It is very different from the early days when I used it 10 or more years ago, trying to dictate judgments. I found that it took longer to correct them than it would have taken me to type them in the first instance.
Translation software is also now very reliable. Of course, it is not available for all languages—one has to recognise that—but it is available for many, and English is the ubiquitous language into which many other languages have to be translated across the world. Publicly available software is always available now to vocalise translatable text. Many courts around the world are using this technology now for translation and interpretation purposes, and others are thinking of introducing it imminently. I declare an interest as Chief Justice of the Astana International Financial Court.
So its day has come, or very soon will come. Computing power is doubling every six months at the moment. I urge the Government to look closely at what is going on around the world and make plans urgently to keep up. When they do, I suggest, in the light of bitter experience of the court reform programme, that they buy products off the shelf and do not seek to build them from scratch or indulge in overengineering. I see the Minister smiling because she has seen this at the coalface. If there is time, I would be grateful to have an indication of what is being planned by the Government to use technology for translation and interpretation.
Then we turned to the problems. I suppose you could describe the major problem as cultural. There is a major disconnect between what we heard from various parties and what the Courts Service told us. I would not say that it was smug, but it did not seem to recognise the need for change. Perhaps that is a contractual question: this famous contract and whether they are locked into it. The processes and the technology seem, on the whole, to be stuck in stasis somewhere.
The big issues on which we really focused were quality and data. How can you improve something if you do not have measurement? How do you relate that to quality? How does it work—and, from that, complaints, et cetera? The two big issues that really stuck out were the pay and conditions of interpreters and the question of what we are going to do about technology. The Minister comes to this anew—she will soon be very familiar with the contract—but, on pay and conditions, I must say that I was reminded of 19th-century mill owners in their approach to this. It was, “Get is as cheap as you can. Pay piecework, then lay them off if there’s nothing to do”. I am not sure that is a sustainable basis for building this incredibly important workforce. We were told by many witnesses that there was going to be a shortage.
Looking forward, pay and conditions need reforming now, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, we keep getting pushed back. We do not know what those terms and conditions will be. They are wrapped up in the secrecy of the contract and confidentiality. However, really and truly, there are two things here. First, we described pay as being “low and opaque”. Then there is the fact that the conditions, including cancellation of trials and non-payment for that, are unsustainable. There is competition out there, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said. There is the police service and there are other people who employ them. So, if we are to have this service on a sustained basis, what we have to do is make sure that the terms and conditions are there.
Because the contract is being negotiated, all we can ask the Minister to do is to look at the contract to make sure that it is fair and modern and has some dynamic aspects. Looking at the existing contract, we were struck that it was sclerotic and juddery and that it did not have a mechanism for reform. All these contracts need something for continuous improvement.
Those factors—pay and conditions—have to be got right, but equally important is technology. The Lord, Lord Blencathra, discussed audio-visual technology. It seemed amazing to us that the court service really has no idea of exactly what is going on out there. It talked about the need for technology and about who was responsible. Clearly, there should be an inventory and a plan. Can the Minister look at this and tell us, at some point, what assessment has been made of the existing state of technology in the courts? Is there a road map to correct it, and can that be put in place? Is it the usual story that the Treasury will not agree to it, or is there some other managerial shortcoming? It would be nice to know.
More important is the question of AI. I admit that, in this case, I often feel a bit like the famous dog watching television: I can see it but I do not get it—and I do not know how the department will get it. We had a lot of evidence discussing the speed with which AI would come. Realistically, we have to know what is possible. I hope that, at some point, the Minister will be able to tell us, perhaps in writing, whether there is a road map for this in the department, particularly for the court service. How will it assess the right moment to do it? Will it buy technology from abroad and, if so, what assessment has been made of that? Frankly, we will have a crossover with a declining labour force in this area if we continue with cheap pay, so will technology arise as an answer to some of that? We should think very carefully about that.
The question for me is the issue of continuous improvement in the contract. Let us hope that it is in the contract, and that we do not have something frozen in time. To get that right, the department must take ownership. This made me think of Mr Jaggers; he had some good clients with Magwitch and Miss Havisham, but he obviously built a pretty good practice by getting on and delivering it. I hope that the Ministry of Justice can get its act together with this contract, drawing on and taking forward what we say, so that we get a much better and, above all, sustainable service in a changing market.
We have seen a lot of improvements since 1985, when Mrs Begum won her appeal against her murder conviction after it was revealed that, in her original trial, the so-called interpreter had not understood the difference between manslaughter and murder. Unless the pipeline of level 6 interpreters is increased, we may risk going backwards, not forwards.
Will the Minister also agree that the MoJ should insist on service providers increasing rates of pay, including for travel time and expenses, and that minimum pay should be reviewed at least annually, as recommended? Can she also spell out what other measures the MoJ intends to take to improve the supply chain by enhancing support for training, public respect for the professionalism of PSIs, and the provision of the appropriate technical and other equipment they need in court to do their job properly and safely? Will she commit to costing and including dedicated audio equipment, such as sound booths, in the court refurbishment programme?
Another committee recommendation is that remote interpreting should be introduced more widely for less complex cases. This is undoubtedly pragmatic and realistic as part of a long-term solution. I would caution only that in the evidence submitted by the APPG, we pointed out that during the Covid lockdowns there was a big shift towards remote court hearings and that a series of major reports, including one from the Magistrates’ Association, found significant concerns over the suitability of remote interpreting, with examples of misunderstandings, delays, poorly performing technology and missed verbal and non-verbal cues. We therefore recommended that research be carried out to show how such failings can be eliminated in future. Let us get this right, not rush it.
I caution also against the reliability and wholesale adoption of machine translation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, was quite right to say that it is not appropriate in all languages. The huge gaps currently in AI training data mean that machine translation works very well for standard Romance languages such as Spanish, Italian and French, and for German, but it is much less effective in languages with many dialects, such as Arabic, and has been shown to be virtually useless with tonal languages such as Mandarin and many other Asian and African languages. We need to look at what AI training data is being used before we commit entirely to machine translation.
Finally, it seems very strange to me, as it did to the committee, that different government departments and the police are all maintaining their own lists and registers of interpreters and translators when there is a national register in place which might simply need the Government and public services to get behind it. I hope the Minister might comment on this.
In conclusion, I offer my thanks and congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and her committee on such a rigorous and helpful inquiry and report, and I look forward to its speedy implementation, as well as to the reply from the Minister, who is of course most welcome in her new role.
First, we have all adapted to remote working since the pandemic. It is clear that it is not suited to everyone or to every role, but there are many ways in which it can increase efficiency. It can hardly be described as cutting edge. The report notes that the use of remote interpreting can increase the amount of work that an interpreter can do and that it is particularly suited to procedural, administrative and technical hearings. Does the Minister agree? Will the Government consider how they can use any court refurbishment to ensure that more courts are suitable for remote interpreting, including having the appropriate audio-visual equipment, court layout changes and procedures? This would be a positive step and could draw on lessons from across government, in areas such as health.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, is the role that AI may play in the future of translation in public services. I was initially disappointed to note that the MoJ seemed to be rejecting the potential value of AI, citing not only concerns on accuracy but also legal, policy, cultural and ethical implications. I agree that in such high-stake situations as substantive court proceedings, the need for accuracy and associated risks mean that we may not be quite there for full rollout. However, the use of AI for translation is already widely adopted in the business world. New technology should not be held to a higher standard than the status quo. Even the most skilled human interpreter cannot guarantee 100% accuracy. After all, human error cannot be totally removed from any system.
Best-in-class AI models are already way ahead of ad hoc use of basic digital translation tools that we heard in evidence are sometimes used as a last resort in the courts at the moment. The developments in AI that we have seen in the last few years mean that it would be a mistake to underestimate where the technology may be in the next 12 months, let alone five years. We heard from only one witness who believed that AI would move at pace. His evidence was quite punchy but nevertheless serious. It is clear that he was correct. I am disappointed that the department will not commit to a road map within six months. I strongly believe that AI will play a substantial role in the future of translation services. Most likely, this will be alongside and with oversight by skilled translation professionals. The Government should be planning on this basis.
Will the Minister commit to implementing the committee’s recommendation to publish within six months a funded road map for the introduction of AI tools for interpreting in public services? Will the Government commit to continuing to engage with industry to ensure that they are able to make the most of AI in this area? We need to ensure that momentum is sustained, and I welcome the work that the Government have done with major industry players—from the memorandum of understanding between the UK and OpenAI on AI opportunities, signed in July, and ongoing work to boost automation and efficiency across numerous departments with partners such as Microsoft and UiPath.
Finally, while I was initially disappointed by the MoJ’s attitude to the use of AI in the court system, I was heartened to hear that it is piloting the use of AI translation technology in certain prison settings. It is encouraging to see this taking place in modern and Victorian-era prisons. I hope that these pave the way for a wider rollout, in line with the Government’s stated ambition to pilot and scale AI services. To do this, will the Minister also take forward our recommendation to develop exemplar courts that can pilot the better deployment of remote interpretation and AI to support the delivery of interpretation and translation services?
In conclusion, I believe that we have an excellent example here of how AI is on the cusp of being suitable for deployment in public services. It can improve the work of our courts and, I believe, improve the status and work of translators. I hope that Ministers choose to seize that opportunity.
Quite frankly, unless the new arrangement is seriously improved to not only retain existing staff but strongly appeal to new contenders, the Government have to recognise that our court system, and other legal systems that require interpreters, will face a critical future. Between 2011 and 2023, we have seen a 33% decline in registered interpreters, which has led to adjourned cases, potential growing miscarriage of justice and the use of poorly qualified individuals. This jeopardises the legal system. Yes, the decline is significantly due to the poor service offered to interpreters, but crucially also to the decline in students taking language courses who might become tomorrow’s interpreters. Between 2010 and 2021, the number of students studying level 3 languages at school fell by 50%, with 28 of the 1992 new universities no longer even offering language degrees as part of their courses.
I make the point because the demand for language interpreters is rising dramatically, with some 200 languages now required, and the increase in individuals needing interpreters is rising dramatically too. The committee, given the limited time for this short inquiry, did not include the obvious increasing challenge to our legal system from the growing numbers of immigrants—94% of whom arrived in the UK between 2018 and 2024 and who have subsequently applied for asylum. They therefore need access to legal support and assessment, which require interpreters. Given that most do not have English as their first language, support from interpreters will be required, putting added pressure for interpreters on Border Force, the Home Office, thebigword, Clear Voice and Migrant Help.
It is because of the enormous increased demand for interpreting services that I again urge the Minister to take more seriously the move to use new technologies, in particular AI, in support of that demand. I am delighted that half the speakers today had AI on their programmes; it was just one when I started. It is very sad that the Ministry of Justice constantly ignores the opportunity that AI can bring to its services, including in translation. I accept that there will be a significant number of court cases where the complexity of the legal challenge will not be overcome by the use of AI alone or by other present technologies. For example, I do not want the Minister to duplicate Donald Trump’s demand that all Medicaid contributions are initially assessed by AI before being granted. Please do not start down that way.
However, there is no doubt that AI and other technologies will have to be used, not simply to meet the huge shortage of interpreters in all public services but to improve those services dramatically by providing sophisticated analysis of arising data. To be fair, the Government have started using AI: the Home Office has used streaming algorithms to categorise visa applications and help manage the asylum system; it has used AI in combination with electronic monitoring, such as GPS ankle tags, for immigrant enforcement; and it has used AI systems to perform initial screenings of online e-visa applications, sending at-risk cases to an immigration officer rather than requiring support from interpreters.
This helps lessen the worry of many interpreters that AI will remove their work opportunities. That is simply not the case. AI in language and content interpretation will never be successful without the systematic involvement of high-level interpreters to monitor and control content.
Since the committee’s witness sessions, I have enjoyed reading the thoughts and proposals of Professor Susskind, one of the world’s leading AI enthusiasts, through his publications such as Tomorrow’s Lawyers. One I particularly recommend is Online Courts and the Future of Justice,where he quite rightly makes the point that the digital transformation of legal services is coming quickly—whether we like it or not. To be fair to the Minister, Sarah Sackman, she understood and agreed that this is the way forward but, without a very strong and positive agenda, it will emerge only when chaos demands. This was an excellent report and this is a wonderful opportunity for the Minister to respond to it and be noted for bringing AI to the centre of this work.