Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an estimate of the number of court cases that collapsed due to the lack of an available interpreter in (a) Great Yarmouth Magistrates Court and (b) England and Wales in the last 12 months.

The Ministry of Justice does not collate information regarding “collapsed trials” due to the lack of interpreter availability, but the Department does routinely publish data concerning ineffective trials including where the reason is “no interpreter available” as part of the Accredited Official Statistics series Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly. An ineffective trial is a trial that does not go ahead on the scheduled trial date and a further listing is required.

In response to the questions (a) and (b), we confirm the following, based on the above description:

1. There were five ineffective trials where the reason was “no interpreter available” at Great Yarmouth magistrates’ courts in 2023.

2. There were 556 ineffective trials where the reason was “no interpreter available” at all magistrates’ courts in England and Wales in 2023, this accounted for less than 1% of all listed trials in that period.