Court and tribunal interpreters: who gets one free and what changed on 5 October 2026

From Monday 5 October 2026, courts and tribunals in England and Wales run on new language services contracts. The Ministry of Justice has kept thebigword as its main interpreting supplier and added a second one, Translate UK, so that fewer hearings start without the interpreter who was booked. For anyone who does not speak English, the way you ask for an interpreter has not changed — the odds of one actually turning up should.

What exactly changed in the courts on 5 October 2026?

Courts now have a second spoken-language supplier: a booking thebigword cannot fill is passed to Translate UK instead of being bought in from outside the contract.

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The Ministry of Justice announced the new contracts on 5 October 2026. Spoken language interpreting goes to thebigword in the first instance, with Translate UK as the additional secondary supplier. Visual and tactile communication, including British Sign Language, stays with Clarion UK. Independent quality assurance stays with The Language Shop, which carries out risk-based assessments and is meant to spot problems before they derail a hearing.

The second change affects interpreters themselves. Onboarding now includes a mandatory induction to the justice system: how a hearing runs, what professional standards apply, and what court and tribunal users need. Interpreters can also opt out of particular case types, for example hearings involving distressing material.

Who gets a free interpreter at a court or tribunal?

A free interpreter is always provided to a defendant in a criminal case, to anyone who is deaf or hard of hearing, and in family cases involving children, domestic abuse or forced marriage.

The GOV.UK rules differ by jurisdiction:

Criminal courts. Defendants always get an interpreter, and you can contact the court hearing the case to check one has been booked. A defence witness should ask the defence solicitor to arrange it; a prosecution witness is covered by the prosecuting agency, usually the Crown Prosecution Service.

Family courts. An interpreter is provided where the case involves children, domestic violence or forced marriage. For other family cases you qualify only if all three apply: you cannot pay for an interpreter yourself, you do not qualify for legal aid, and you have no friend or relative the judge will allow to interpret.

Civil courts. An interpreter is provided in possession cases involving property or land — including eviction by a landlord — and in committal cases, where prison is a possibility. Other civil cases are subject to the same three conditions as family cases.

Tribunals. Some tribunals expect you to ask for an interpreter on the appeal form itself. If the form has gone in already, contact the tribunal office before the hearing.

Separately, you have a legal right to speak Welsh in a court or tribunal, and forms and leaflets are available in Welsh.

How many interpreter bookings do the courts handle, and how often do they fail?

In the second quarter of 2026 courts and tribunals completed 53,253 language service requests at a 96% success rate, while 4,088 requests had to be bought off-contract — a new series peak.

The figures were published by the Ministry of Justice on 24 September 2026 in its quarterly criminal court statistics and cover the whole of the MoJ, not only the criminal courts. Completed requests were up 4% on the previous year (51,339), and the success rate has sat around 96% since 2018.

Two pressure points stand out. The first is off-contract bookings, used when the contracted supplier cannot fill a request: there were 4,088 of them between April and June 2026, 24% up on the previous quarter and 33% up on the year. That is the number the new contracts are meant to bring down.

The second is collapsed hearings. In April to June 2026, 185 criminal trials in the magistrates' courts and the Crown Court did not go ahead on the day because no interpreter was available. That is 3% of all ineffective trials, a share steady since the start of 2024. For the people involved it means a new date in a system where the backlog is already growing.

Cancellations are counted separately: 13,625 in the quarter, or 26% of all requests, up from 13% in late 2017. Cancellations do not feed into the success rate. There were 286 complaints in the quarter, a rate of 0.5%; the complaint rate has stayed below 1% since the third quarter of 2020.

How do you ask for an interpreter for your hearing?

Contact the court or tribunal dealing with your case, do it well before the hearing date, and in tribunals flag the need for an interpreter on the appeal form itself.

Practical points people tend to learn too late:

— A court-booked interpreter normally works during the hearing only. Taking part in legal discussions before or after it needs the judge's permission.

— Name the language and the dialect precisely. A booking for the wrong variant means the wrong specialist in the room and a hearing put off.

— If you are a criminal defendant, the interpreter should be booked without you asking, but it is still worth checking with the court. For what happens at an earlier stage, see our guide to your rights on arrest.

— In the immigration tribunal and the employment tribunal, the interpreter request goes in with your case papers, not on the day.

Can a relative or friend interpret for you?

Sometimes, but only if the judge agrees, and you have to ask before the hearing rather than in the courtroom.

GOV.UK expressly allows a friend or family member to interpret with the judge's permission. In practice, permission is given reluctantly where the relative has a stake in the outcome — family disputes, cases about children, debt claims. In domestic abuse cases the court provides the interpreter, and this is the same category where courts have had to record a domestic abuse finding at sentencing since 5 October 2026.

What if the interpreter does not turn up, or interprets badly?

Tell the judge during the hearing, then complain to HMCTS, which has 10 working days to reply.

The route runs like this. First, say so in the hearing: if the quality of interpreting stops you following what is happening, that is a reason to pause or adjourn, not to sit it out. Then complain to HM Courts and Tribunals Service — online form, email, phone, letter, or in person at the court building. The first response is due within 10 working days. If it does not satisfy you, you can ask a senior manager to review it (another 10 working days) and then escalate to the User Investigations Team (15 working days).

One limit matters: HMCTS looks at how staff handled your case, not at judicial decisions. Complaints about the conduct of a judge or tribunal member go to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, and about a magistrate to the local Conduct Advisory Committee; neither body changes the decision in your case. If the HMCTS stages are exhausted, your MP can refer the case to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

What does this change for people who do not speak English?

Nothing in the rules and quite a lot in reliability: you or your lawyer still make the request, but the court now has a second supplier behind it and independent quality checks.

The MoJ figures show where the risk actually sits — not in refusals, since 96% of requests are filled, but in last-minute substitutions and in the 185 trials a quarter that do not start because no interpreter is there. So the advice stands: request an interpreter as early as you can, state the language and dialect precisely, and check the booking a few days before the hearing.

If you need an interpreter at a medical appointment rather than in court, a different process applies — in the NHS the surgery or reception books it, which we covered in our guide to interpreters and registering with a GP.