Text tabled : A6-0361/2008

  David Sumberg (PPE-DE). - Madam President, thank you for calling me. I and the Conservative delegation to Parliament voted against this Gebhardt report. Before I came to Parliament I practised law in the United Kingdom, including, from time to time, divorce law. I think this would be a retrograde step to take. It is a matter for each nation state to determine the law which would be applicable to such matters.

There is no need whatsoever for the European Commission or any other European body to interfere. All our countries have different traditions, different views of divorce, different faiths, different religions, different backgrounds, and it is right and proper that each individual country should reflect that. We should not accept the imposition of any superior body telling us what to do.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity and for achieving a memorable moment in my political career when I can truthfully say that I have spoken, apart from to you, Madam President, to a completely and utterly empty Chamber.