I wholeheartedly endorse my noble friend’s amendment, having seen on a couple of occasions interpreters who I seriously thought could barely speak English. Imagine the confusion when the interpreter translated “car” as “cow”. The judge became pretty exasperated at this point. However, there is one obstacle to this that I see. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, mentioned one obstacle, but the other might be that it is very difficult at the moment for courts to find interpreters at all. I seriously worry that there is going to be a shortage of interpreters, although I still feel that we should get the standard up, whatever happens. Perhaps we need to have courses for interpreters with proper qualifications making it a career in which people who could become interpreters could find some sort of vocation.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Berkeley of Knighton
(Crossbench)
in the House of Lords on Monday, 22 November 2021.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
816 c657 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2021-12-08 15:16:14 +0000
URI
http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Lords/2021-11-22/21112269000029
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Lords/2021-11-22/21112269000029
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Lords/2021-11-22/21112269000029