I mentioned recently a tweet from Prof Jo Delahunty QC:

Twitter help plz?HoL session nxt wk on legal interpreting:can u think of legal terms/turn of speech that r unintelligible even 2 lawyers?

I couldn’t work out what House of Lords session this might be, but a colleague has told me it was a closed meeting of the All Party parliamentary Group on Modern Languages. This group was started by Baroness Coussins and is now chaired by Baroness Nia Griffith. I am not even sure whether the House of Lords committee meeting was today or yesterday. It has concerned itself a lot with the farming out of interpreting and translation services. It was started because Jean Coussins was concerned about the decline in modern language teaching in schools. The committee has branched out into all areas where modern languages are an issue.

To quote the British Council Site:

The APPG’s stated purpose is to:

• explore the educational, skills-related, employment, competitive and cultural benefits of learning and using languages throughout the UK

• provide a parliamentary forum for information exchange and consultation

• encourage and support policies and action improving the take-up of languages in schools, further and higher education, in the workplace and in the community.

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