To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport what assessment he has made of the (a) effectiveness and (b) usability of his Department's contract with Applied Language Solutions for court translation services; and if he will make a statement.

I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Department for Justice.

There have been an unacceptable number of problems in the first few weeks of the contract and we have made clear to the contractor that this must be changed. The contractor is taking urgent steps to improve performance including providing additional staff to deal with bookings, further targeted recruitment of interpreters in key languages and improvements to the call handling and complaints process.