Member

The second reason for wanting to see this amendment in the Bill is, I am afraid, a feeling of nervousness based on past experience; if all I hear from the Government is an assurance that this right already exists, or that it might be mentioned in some future operational guidance or code, then that will not cut it for me. When the Victims and Prisoners Act was going through its final stages in this House, the then Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, agreed that the victims’ code should be amended to state that interpreting and translation services should be provided by qualified professionals. In pushing for this, I was very glad to have the strong support, on the record, of the then Opposition Front Bench—now His Majesty’s Government. The trouble is, however, that the important change has never come to fruition; the promised public consultation on this and other amendments to the victims’ code has never happened. Therefore, there is still no guaranteed right to those language services being professionally provided. I want to see this right clearly spelled out in this Bill, so that there is no excuse or wiggle room for short-changing some of the most vulnerable people in circumstances where they need to understand exactly and reliably what is happening to them.