It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Pritchard. This issue is of particular interest to me, not because I am on the Justice Committee or because I am a former Home Secretary or anything like that, but simply because it was brought to my attention in the previous Parliament by constituents who worked in the interpretation service. They told me about the dangers of what was then the initial move towards such a system by the police service in Greater Manchester and some other police services across north-west England. It is a shame that we did not learn from the mistakes of the original contract with the police service and stop this before it started.
I thank two of my constituents, Marc Starr and Kasia Beresford, who have been particularly helpful on this issue over the years. Interestingly, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) mentioned Madeleine Lee, which is a name that rings many bells, as I have received many e-mails from her in recent times. I also pay tribute to the Select Committee and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) for conducting the inquiry and for ensuring we had this debate following the Government’s response. The issue is of great interest to many Members from across the UK.
I apologise to the Minister because some of my remarks may not be particularly friendly towards the Ministry of Justice. I appreciate that she was landed with this when she became a Minister, and that it was not of her doing. I appreciate that some of the things that have happened are certainly not a direct result of her being a Minister, but of course she is now the person responsible for dealing with the mess in which we find ourselves.
The Select Committee’s report is pretty damning. The report accuses the Department of gagging staff and stopping them from participating in the consultation, which the Committee suggests might be contempt of the House. Fortunately, it was able to get enough information from other sources for it not to want to pursue that matter. That prompts me to question what the Department had to hide. The report also pointed out that the Department was warned throughout its consultation that quality standards would dip due to the imposition
of a tiered system and lower pay for interpreters. The report concluded that, although there were administrative efficiencies compared with the previous arrangements, there were no real fundamental problems with the quality of the service provided by members of the National Register of Public Service Interpreters with a diploma in public service interpreting. The national agreement, with a few issues, worked reasonably well.
In a nutshell, the system was not broken. The MOJ was warned that its proposals would cause problems, which certainly proved to be the case. When the Select Committee decided to investigate, the MOJ tried to stop staff from assisting the inquiry. Frankly, that is not good enough.
In its response to the report, the Ministry of Justice admitted a problem with performance:
“We know that performance in the MoJ under the contract has not been of a satisfactory level. Many of the points raised in the Justice Committee’s report have already been acknowledged and acted on, and others are being actively taken forward. We have gone back to the Framework Agreement itself to see whether changes can be made which will impact beneficially on performance, alongside ongoing work in the Department to improve our own processes. We are not complacent and are continuing to challenge and resolve issues which affect performance.”
I argue, however, that the Department is being complacent.
The Government, according to their response,
“expect that the changes to interpreters’ terms will increase the number and availability of Tier 1 and 2 interpreters”.
The changes, however, were not supported by the Professional Interpreters for Justice, the interpreters working for Capita or those with the tribunals service who attended meetings to discuss the changes. Will the Minister explain how she can be so certain that the changes will attract more well-qualified interpreters when 85% of well-qualified interpreters have made it clear that they will not work for Capita, because of the lowering of professional standards? Professional Interpreters for Justice made that clear back in March, and yet its advice, the responses to the consultation and my debate back in 2007 have been completely ignored.
As I said, the Select Committee report made it clear that nothing was fundamentally wrong with the quality of the service before the new contract was introduced. No one is suggesting that it was perfect or that improvements could not have been made, but fundamentally it worked well. No one has seriously tried to defend the changes on the basis of driving up standards; they have always been about saving money.
The Justice Committee report recommended that the Department be clearer about the true costs of the contract. The Department, in its response, claimed that the framework agreement had made significant savings over the first year of the contract, but it failed to provide any evidence to back up that claim. The Government’s response recognises that certain costs are difficult to calculate, admitting:
“Reasons for a hearing adjournment are not routinely recorded, so it is difficult to identify adjournments for interpreting problems. However, we would expect any difficulties with interpreting to be raised through the complaints system by staff.”
If so, how can the Minister be certain that savings have been made? The simple answer is that it is impossible to be certain whether any savings have been made under the contract.
In reality, the savings claimed by the MOJ do not include the costs of court delays, case adjournments, repeated remands in custody for offenders and all other related expenses of underperformance, including those of court clerks who have booked interpreters outside the contract because of Capita’s poor service—that goes on, and it goes on a lot. Has the Department made any assessment of such costs? If not, how can the MOJ stand by the claim that it has made significant savings in the first year of operation? I simply do not see how it can. Finally on cost, the Department estimated the staffing costs of liaising with Capita and overseeing performance at £315,000 between January 2012 and March 2013. Will the Minister confirm whether those costs are being reimbursed by Capita? How much will the ongoing costs be of ensuring that its performance continues to be thoroughly scrutinised?
We are not only talking about money; we must not forget justice and access to justice. In giving evidence, Mr Atkinson of the Law Society stated that while miscarriages of justice would occur infrequently, they were possible. Even one miscarriage of justice is one too many, but perhaps more concerning was his comment that
“people are spending time in custody for no reason other than the lack of an interpreter.”
Again, that is not acceptable.
As the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle said, 608 magistrates court trials and 34 Crown court trials were recorded ineffective in 2012, as a result of interpreters being unavailable—a 100% increase on the previous year. Does the Minister consider that acceptable? Furthermore, will the Minister tell the House how many defendants have remained in custody as a result of ineffective trials that are a direct result of an interpreter not being available?
I suspect that the Minister will tell me that she cannot answer any of those questions—that the data are not easily available and she does not know the answer. If so, she must accept that her Department cannot justify continuing to defend the contract, and that we must look seriously at cancelling it.
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