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.
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 second after its bill has more than trebled since 2020 to £3.1million.
The cost of Kurdish interpreters, who often cater for people from Iraq and Syria, has soared 234 per cent in six years from £545,000 in 2020/21 to £1.8million.
Spending on Tigrinya, the language of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, leapt 66 per cent in a single year to £351,000 and has more than quadrupled since 2020/21.
The bill for Pashto, one of the main languages of Afghanistan, jumped 65 per cent in 12 months to £654,000 and has more than trebled since 2020/21.
Dari, which is spoken across much of Afghanistan, cost £213,000 in 2025/26 compared with just £82,000 in 2020/21, while Farsi, the language of Iran, rose to £732,000.
Home Office figures show the majority of small boat migrants claiming asylum in recent years have come from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Albania.
New figures released by officials at the Ministry of Justice reveal for the first time that 99 per cent of the interpreting spend they can categorise went on criminal cases.
Of the face-to-face interpreting bill that officials could split between the two court systems, £17.7million was spent on criminal hearings compared with just £191,000 on civil cases.
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The Ministry of Justice statistics show how the annual bill for interpreters to guide people through the legal system has climbed relentlessly over the last six years:
- 2020/21 - £16.0million
- 2021/22 - £21.3million
- 2022/23 - £23.4million
- 2023/24 - £24.4million
- 2024/25 - £25.9million
- 2025/26 - £28.4million
Much of the money still goes on languages spoken by the biggest foreign national groups in Britain's prisons, including Polish, Romanian, Albanian and Lithuanian offenders and suspects.
Romanian was the most expensive language for the second year in a row at £3.2million, while the bill for Polish fell for the second successive year to £3million.
The ten languages that have cost taxpayers the most over the last six years of the Ministry of Justice contract, from 2020/21 to 2025/26, were:
- Polish £18.5million
- Romanian £17.7million
- Arabic (two versions) £11.3million
- Albanian £9.5million
- Urdu £9.3million
- Kurdish (three versions) £7.3million
- Bengali (two versions) £6.2million
- Punjabi (two versions) £6.0million
- Lithuanian £4.7million
- Russian £3.2million
Among the more obscure tongues on the bill in 2025/26 were Zaghawa (£107), spoken in Sudan's Darfur region, Bilen (£178) from Eritrea and Kibajuni (£230) from coastal Somalia.
Officials also spent £60,000 having documents translated from English into Welsh, the biggest single item on the separate contract covering written translation and transcription work.
Most of the money goes on helping foreign-speaking crime suspects who need legal papers translated and then require an interpreter standing alongside them throughout their trial proceedings.
Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: “Poland and Romania (the top two), along with a third EU state, Lithuania, are among the top ten recipients of British taxpayer money on translation services.
“Meanwhile, we are told that EU citizens are leaving Britain in droves. Really? This is a shocking and unnecessary expense.
“The bill of £139million would pay the annual wages of 6,000 care workers. It’s time the Government stopped squandering our hard-earned money in this way.”
Officials at the Ministry of Justice say part of the rise is explained by courts hearing more cases since sitting days collapsed during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “This is a purposely misleading interpretation of the figures. Translation costs – essential to a fair trial – have increased as a result of record Government investment in sitting days, meaning more cases are being heard than ever before.
“This is part of the work we are doing to turn the tide on the courts backlog and deliver swifter justice for victims.
“These vital services support victims, witnesses and defendants and ensure trials are fair.
“Costs have increased because courts are hearing more cases since the pandemic but we always seek the most affordable options and best value for the taxpayer.”
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