Illegal Channel migrants driving surge in court interpreter costs​ as millions in taxpayer cash spent on non-English speakers

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The bill for court interpreters has smashed through £28million for the first time – with the surging cost of languages spoken by small boat migrants helping drive the rise.Taxpayers spent a record £28.4million in the 2025/26 financial year on translators to help defendants, witnesses and victims who could not speak English in court.The cost is up nine per cent on the £25.9million spent in 2024/25 and works out at more than £545,000 for every week of the year.It takes the total bill for the last six years to £139million, with Ministry of Justice figures showing the cost of the service rising every single year since 2020.

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TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say But some of the sharpest rises have been for languages spoken by the nationalities who make up the majority of asylum seekers arriving in Britain on small boats.Romanian translators were responsible for the biggest bill last year (£3.2million), but for the first time Arabic, spoken in war-torn nations like Syria, Sudan and Yemen, came...

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