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Family Law Bill
30. Lady Olga Maitland: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what representations he has had with respect to the Family Law Bill. [4666]
Mr. Jonathan Evans: I have received a number of representations, including representations from my hon. Friend, in relation to the proposals contained in the Family Law Bill. I am also aware that my hon. Friend has been to see my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, and I trust that she was reassured by what he had to say.
Lady Olga Maitland: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply, but I was not reassured by what the Lord Chancellor had to say to me. Is my hon. Friend aware that there is grave disquiet throughout the country about the Family Law Bill, which will hasten the break-up of marriages? The victims of such break-ups are undoubtedly the children: children of broken marriages are more likely to turn to crime and subsequently to carry knives. Surely my hon. Friend agrees that we must do all that we can to enhance marriage.
Mr. Evans: I am disappointed to learn that my hon. Friend has not been reassured to date. I look forward to ensuring that she is reassured during the months ahead. Let me also tell her that it is not the existence of legislation to deal with instances of marital breakdown that causes such breakdowns; sadly, marital breakdown is a fact of life in our society. I entirely agree with her about the effect on children. She will know that that has been one of my main interests since I have been in the House and before. It is very important that we recognise that perpetuating a system that is based on conflict does nothing in the circumstance to help the position of children.
Mr. Boateng: The Minister is welcome to his place. He has been bloodied by his friend the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland). Let us hope that he is unbowed, at least on this issue. Will he give the House an assurance that the Family Law Bill has been properly costed and that there are funds available for a comprehensive mediation service? If such a service is not in place, we shall not be able to give families the support that they deserve and would have another example of the Government wishing the end without willing the means.
Mr. Evans: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome and I welcome him to the Dispatch Box.
The Family Law Bill rightly places an important emphasis on mediation, but it also does something that I hoped would be welcomed by the Opposition: it showsthat the Government have not set out the precise framework in which that mediation is to be offered. We are prepared to take that forward on a pilot basis. I reiterate that assurance to the House today.
Madam Speaker:
Thank you. We have made very poor progress in the past hour. I hope that, after Christmas, questions will be much brisker and exchanges much swifter across the Floor of the House. Progress today has not been very good at all.
Madrid Summit
3.31 pm
The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): With permission, Madam Speaker, I shall make a statement on the meeting of the European Council at Madrid, which I attended with my right hon. and learned Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have placed the conclusions of the Council in the Library.
I shall deal first with economic and monetary union and then with enlargement--the two most important matters discussed over the weekend.
The decisions that the European Union must take on those two issues over the next few years could be the most crucial steps for Europe since the European Community was founded. They will have a profound effect on the political and economic stability of our continent over the next generation.
On economic and monetary union, the Madrid Council decided on a name for the single European currency.
"Euro" was not a name that attracted universal enthusiasm around the Council table; it will not ease the task of those seeking to market the idea of a single currency, but one or more of the member states had rooted objections to each of the other names suggested.
A more fundamental decision was to study the implications of seeking to introduce a single currency in 1999. As the House knows, I have for a long time argued that the introduction of a single currency by a small minority of states would raise very serious questions about its economic consequences and about the way in which Europe functions. At the informal meeting in Majorca in September, there was general agreement that those questions needed to be examined carefully. At Madrid, a study was formally commissioned.
The Maastricht treaty lays down strict criteria for entry to a single currency. It is now certain that, on a proper interpretation of the criteria, only a small number of member states will meet them if a single currency is introduced in January 1999. Before taking such a step, the European Union needs to consider what it would mean in practice. It must consider its effect on the states outside the single currency area, as well as those inside it. It must consider how decisions would be taken. It must ask whether the result would be divergence rather than convergence of European economies. It must consider the potential effects on employment and the demand for resource transfers. The risk of monetary instability is one of the questions to be examined.
Some have argued for rigid linkages between those inside and those outside a single currency, by reverting to an old-style exchange rate mechanism. That is a course that has been tried and has failed. I have made it clear to our partners that I would not recommend that sterling should return to such a system.
Europe needs coherent answers to those and other questions, and I am glad that the Madrid Council decided to examine them. The opt-out that I negotiated at Maastricht protects the United Kingdom from being forced into an unworkable system, but it is vital to our interests and to the interests of Europe as a whole that a single currency does not begin and then fail, thus causing economic turmoil right across the European continent.
I now refer to enlargement. Ahead even of prosperity, the European Union exists to provide security and stability for the peoples of Europe. For that reason, I believe that enlargement is the most important task facing the European Union. Having demolished the iron curtain, we must never again have a dividing line running through the middle of Europe.
Ten or more countries are hoping to negotiate entry to the European Union in the coming years. This is an historic opportunity to entrench stability through a union of democracies right across the continent, and one that I passionately believe we must take. The Madrid Council gave further impetus to enlargement. The European Commission has been asked to produce opinions on all eastern and central European applicants as soon as possible after the end of the intergovernmental conference. That is a necessary step towards full accession negotiations, which are likely to begin with at least the most advanced of the new applicants, as well as with Malta and Cyprus, in about two years' time.
The Madrid Council considered reports from the Commission on the implications of enlargement for the European Union's policies, and those are profound. To be affordable and to be consistent with the EU's obligations under the general agreement on tariffs and trade, the common agricultural policy will have to be reformed when the Union enlarges, and so will the structural and the cohesion funds. At my insistence, it was agreed that future meetings of the Council would examine the implications. The Madrid Council has therefore taken an important step towards combining policy reform with enlargement, both of which are essential to the European Union's future.
I shall deal briefly with some of the other subjects that were discussed at Madrid. It was agreed that the intergovernmental conference would start at Turin on 29 March. The conference will be conducted by meetings of Foreign Ministers supported by a working party made up of a representative of each Minister and of the President of the European Commission. No decisions were taken at Madrid on the substance of the intergovernmental confer ence. Work on the agenda will be carried out under the Italian presidency by Foreign Ministers.
The drive to promote subsidiarity was again strongly in evidence at Madrid and was vigorously supported in informal discussion. The Commission has been instructed to examine the continued need for existing Community legislation and for proposals that are now on the table. It is now widely recognised that the United Kingdom was right to reverse the trend towards greater intrusiveness by the Commission. There was also support for our approach to job creation, flexible pay relating to performance, the curtailing of non-wage labour costs and the reform of social protection systems. Increasing emphasis is being given to small and medium-sized enterprises and to the need to cut the burden of red tape and over-regulation.
The campaign against fraud and for better financial management, which I launched at the Essen Council a year ago, gained further weight at Madrid. The House will welcome the higher priority that is being given to intergovernmental co-operation against drug trafficking. At Madrid I presented, with President Chirac, an initiative to help Caribbean states to crack down on the trans-shipment to Europe and elsewhere of huge quantities of drugs that are produced in Latin America. That initiative was agreed by the Council and is now part of the European Union's policy.
On external affairs, the Council underlined the importance of successful implementation of the Bosnian peace agreement and gave support to Mr. Carl Bildt, who will be there leading the international civilian effort. It also discussed the European Union's relations with Russia, Ukraine and Turkey and welcomed the agreement at the recent European Union/United States summit to strengthen the relationship with the United States.
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