Translation Services
Justice

Nick de Bois (Enfield North, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice

(1) how many (a) tier 1, (b) tier 2 and (c) tier 3 interpreters have been supplied by Applied Language Solutions for (i) Crown court and (ii) magistrates court hearings since the beginning of its contract with his Department; and if he will make a statement;

(2) what proportion of interpreters supplied by Applied Language Solutions are registered with the National Register of Public Service Interpreters; and if he will make a statement;

(3) how many wasted costs applications were (a) lodged and (b) granted due to interpretation failures in (i) 2009, (ii) 2010 and (iii) 2011; and if he will make a statement;

(4) how many wasted costs applications were (a) lodged and (b) granted against Applied Language Solutions due to interpretation failures since the beginning of its contract with his Department; and if he will make a statement.

Crispin Blunt (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation), Justice; Reigate, Conservative)

Under the contract for interpretation and translation services it is for Applied Language Solutions to provide interpreters at the appropriate tier to meet the requirements of each booking. The Ministry does not hold information on the tiering status of individual interpreters, their qualifications, or what organisations they are members of Those are matters for the contractor. The Ministry has announced that it intends to publish statistics on the use of interpreters on 24 May.

Decisions about whether to make wasted costs orders and third party costs orders are at the discretion of the court. Information about the number of cases where wasted costs have been considered is not collected centrally by the Ministry.