My Lords, Amendment 280 would restrict the Ministry of Justice to appoint in our courts and tribunals only interpreters who are registered on the national register of public service interpreting—the NRPSI—and possess a level 6 diploma in public service interpreting, or who comply with the NRPSI’s rare language status protocols.
The Ministry of Justice commissions the services of interpreters for our courts and tribunals in England and Wales through its contracted service providers, thebigword and Clarion Interpreting. These interpreters are sourced from the Ministry of Justice’s register, which is audited by an independent language service provider, the Language Shop. All interpreters are required to complete a justice system-specific training course before they are permitted to join the register.
The contract has a clearly defined list of qualifications, skills, experience and vetting requirements interpreters must meet, which have been designed to meet the needs of the justice system. It covers a vast range of assignments, from simple telephone interpreting to deal with a user query to the facilitation of interpretation in a complex criminal trial. The qualifications and level of experience required will depend on the complexity of the assignment and the highest complexity level has qualification criteria comparable to those set by the national register of professional service interpreters.
It is in dealing with that vast range that the noble Baroness’s rhetorical analogy broke down. Of course I would expect my heart surgeon to have the relevant qualifications and experience to fulfil that role. At the same time, if my car developed a minor technical fault, I would not necessarily want to pay out for a consultant engineer to fix it, as opposed to taking it to the local garage.
Complaints about the quality of interpretation or the professional conduct of interpreters are carefully monitored and independently assessed by the Language Shop. The complaint rate remains low at less than 1%.
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I turn to the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, who proposed this amendment, as to the point about obligations under contract regulations, which might tell against her amendment. When procuring services from external suppliers, the Ministry of Justice must comply with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. By mandating the exclusive use of the NRPSI register, or setting a single qualification standard to cover the vast majority of our requirements, we would likely be in breach of those regulations. They prohibit contracting authorities from artificially narrowing the market and from creating unnecessary barriers to entry to bidding for government contracts, and require specific standards or processes which characterise the services provided by a specific supplier. In mandating the exclusive use of the National Register of Public Service Interpreters,
or setting a single qualification standard to cover the vast range of our requirements, the Ministry of Justice would, as I say, likely be in breach of all three public contract regulation requirements and could be subjected to legal challenge from—