Before we start, I welcome members of the public to our proceedings. I remind Members here to err on the side of caution so as not to prejudice any live cases in this country.
That this House has considered the matter of support for parents affected by international child abduction.
Once again, it is a pleasure to serve under you this afternoon, Mrs Cummins. The subject matter of this afternoon’s debate encompasses some enormously difficult issues for our constituents affected, many of whom are with us today, arising, as it does, from matters of family breakdown and often a history of drawn-out and sometimes painful litigation.
I think I need to be clear that it is not for us, here in Parliament, to rehash the arguments on either side of individual cases, nor to seek to make any kind of judgment about the merits of the family and sometimes criminal proceedings that have played a part in the situation that our constituents now face. Having served as a magistrate myself, I have confidence in the due process of law in all of our courts, and in the soundness of their judgments in respect of my constituent and others. The purpose of the debate is to seek action to bring about the enforcement of the decisions of our courts in international law where due process has been followed but not consistently respected.
This starts as a matter drawn to the attention of the House in the Justice Select Committee’s third special report of Session 2017-19, which covers the legal implications of Brexit for our justice system. The report highlights the risks of not having effective means to put into effect legal judgments where children have been abducted. As ample evidence and research demonstrate, the longer the duration of the abduction, the greater the negative impact on all concerned, so time is clearly of the essence.
I want to place on record my thanks to other Members —some are here to contribute to today’s debate—in particular my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who has similarly affected constituents and who has taken an active interest in the issue and helped me to understand how we might support our constituents more effectively. I appreciate that, due to a prior commitment relating to the Westminster bridge terror attack, she is unable to be here today, but she has made points that I have incorporated into my remarks. I am also grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Wealden (Ms Ghani) and for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), and the hon. Members for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Putney (Fleur Anderson), who have approached me to express an interest in the matter because they have constituents affected by it.
It is a pleasure to serve with you as Chair, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) on securing the debate and setting out, in his usual clear and methodical manner, the issues that we will deal with.
I know that other hon. Members, without crossing any sub judice rules, will want to talk about individual constituents’ cases, and to use them, as I intend to, to illustrate this serious matter. I could not agree more with what the hon. Gentleman said; this is about where proceedings have taken place and due process has been followed, often at great expense, and where, almost invariably, one party is unhappy with the outcome—normally litigation—but resolves that simply by not following the rules and by taking children out of the jurisdiction. The question is: what happens then? Does the system work? If it does not work, how can we make it work?
I wish to focus on a rather specific area of the issue, with its own particular problems. I have given notice to the Minister and the shadow Minister that I will raise issues that specifically relate to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, where there are all the usual problems and more—that is, children being taken out of this jurisdiction to that jurisdiction without the consent of the responsible parent. Perhaps we should call it an unintended loophole as, because the children are taken to the TRNC—if I may call it that—against the direction of the courts, and because northern Cyprus is not a signatory to The Hague convention on child abduction, the systems break down almost immediately. Our Government rightly do not recognise the TRNC, but there is therefore no co-operation, even from stage one, in organising the return of the children, even though, as I say, due process has been followed. I appreciate that there are particular problems with other countries; Poland has been mentioned already. There are always problems in child abduction cases and I think that all Members present today will have dealt with quite a number of them, but with northern Cyprus we do not even get to first base.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins, and to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who gave an outstanding introductory speech. He and I have spoken about the issue on a number of occasions, as we are two Members with constituents who are affected. It is an incredibly difficult and complex area. As he alluded to in his opening remarks, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who unfortunately cannot be in the Chamber, has been incredibly helpful, and has covered a lot of ground on this. We have followed in her slipstream to try and make progress in this incredibly complicated area.
Parental child abduction is a dreadful act that is unfortunately more common than we anticipate in our society. In such complicated and emotive cases, it is crucial that the welfare of children is at the centre of all our discussions. Too often, the legal and moral questions become a battle of wills between parents, and leave a vulnerable son or daughter displaced, manipulated and stranded from the life they were due.
I want to raise the case of my constituent John Fletcher, and his daughter Maya who was abducted by her mother to Poland in 2018. Maya was born in November 2014 and is now eight years old. Despite court orders in both the UK and Poland, Maya’s mother took her to Poland in 2018. An appeal at The Hague found in favour of Mr Fletcher, yet the Polish authorities have not assisted in locating and returning Maya to the UK. He has tried his best to have the court’s decision enforced multiple times since 2019, at great personal and financial cost, but to no avail.
The Polish authorities have not been co-operative and have given spurious reasons for their lack of assistance. Mr Fletcher believes that the Polish authorities are siding with the mother. As a result, Maya is currently residing with her mother in Poland, despite a court order saying she should be returned to the UK to live with her father. That is legally and diplomatically incredibly difficult.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I warmly congratulate my London colleague, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), on securing this hugely important debate. It will not be top of the headlines today, but this issue is of high importance to many families across the country. When we talk about crimes, we describe some crimes as being high in number but low in impact and others as low in number but very high impact, and that is what we are talking about today.
It has been a pleasure to work with the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner on this issue. I hope this debate is a watershed moment for those parents suffering because of this injustice. I hope that it acts as a wake-up call to Government to right a wrong that was done—inadvertently, I believe—over the time of Brexit and can be put right.
We are talking about children who are settled in school, settled in their communities and with their families, including their wider family. I am here on behalf of a constituent who is a wider family member, not a parent. That shows the impact that child abduction has; it impacts not just the parents and the close family, but the wider family.
These children are seeing their mother and father on a regular basis in accordance with what the UK courts agreed and stipulated, but then, without the consent of one of the parents, the other parent suddenly, and illegally, takes the children, or the child, from that stable home and community, and relocates them in another country. Twenty-eight days pass and the children are still not home. At this point, under UK law, such actions become a criminal offence called parental child abduction. The parent knows where their children are and who they are with, and they know that a criminal offence has taken place and that their children have been taken illegally. They try all the legal procedures and remedies one by one, but they have been failed and let down by them, and then they are left without their children, without justice and without help and hope. I cannot imagine the despair felt by those families.
Order. This sitting will be suspended for 15 minutes for a Division in the House, or 25 minutes if two Divisions are expected.
3:15 pm
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
3:27 pm
On resuming—
20 of 40 shown
In respect of the cases that have been brought to the attention of Members by constituents, it is important to state, without going into the detail of any of them, that due process in the UK has resulted in a parent having custody, sole or shared, of their child, and the children have then subsequently been removed without the consent of the parent—in the case of my constituent to Poland. As Members might be aware, one objective of the convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction, which was concluded at The Hague on 25 October 1980 and is known as The Hague convention, is to protect children in international law from the harmful effects of wrongful removal, or retention away from the parent with whom they should live, and to ensure that procedures are in place to ensure their prompt return to the state of their habitual residence. That convention, which entered into force on 1 December 1983, was ratified by all European Union member states.
Article 1(a) sets out
“to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed…or retained in any Contracting State”.
Article 2 states:
“Contracting States shall take all appropriate measures”—
appropriate measures is an important phrase—
“to secure within their territories the implementation of the objects of the Convention.”
It goes on:
“For this purpose they shall use the most expeditious procedures available.”
It is important to note that The Hague convention is not the only legal basis that parents of abducted children may use. We hear Brussels II and IIa often mentioned as legal avenues that can be pursued, which are subject to the proceedings having taken place when the UK was an EU member state. Following the same principle as The Hague convention, it is essentially mutual recognition of the orders of each other’s courts being embodied in the treaties that underpinned membership.
Mutual recognition requires each country to respect the integrity of due process in another’s territory. Given the time-critical nature of child abduction cases, the so-called non-appealability, or finality, of such decisions is an important feature. As a matter of course, the UK respects such judgments, as do almost all the countries that are signatories to The Hague convention.
The Justice Committee’s report states that child abduction is among the issues to which the Brussels II provisions apply. It refers to the very complex relationship with The Hague convention, but also sets out that the provisions take precedence in setting out a legal means to bring about a swift resolution of problems when they arise. The report goes on to set out what type of arrangements there might be and what expectations there would be of member states to ensure that those expectations were swiftly met.
Disappointingly, what is very clear is that many Members present have been contacted by their constituents once it is clear that what should be a transparent, straightforward and extremely swift process has not been followed by the authorities in another country—in my constituent’s case, that was Poland—and they are seeking the assistance of the UK Government to enforce the law. This is not a request to go beyond anything that is already enshrined in law; it is simply a matter of enforcing the law that our international agreements recognise.
While there has been considerable ongoing engagement with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Ministers, including meetings with, among others, the Minister for Europe, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), and the British ambassador to Poland, the response and assistance from the Polish authorities in particular has been very disappointing. That is particularly true at the local level, where the enforcement of court orders by the police and court-appointed curators is critical to ensuring the successful return of children. Unfortunately, the experience of my constituent is not unique. We can see from the number of Members present and those who have expressed an interest that there appears to be a common theme, particularly where the children have been taken to Poland.
On 26 January, the European Commission launched an infringement procedure against Poland by sending a letter of formal notice to it for its failure to fulfil its obligations under the Brussels IIa regulation. That infringement case concerns the non-conformity of Polish law with the Brussels IIa regulation, specifically to the provisions relating to the enforcement of judgments or orders that require the return of abducted children to their country of habitual residence. So, at EU level, the situation has reached a point where the Commission considers there to have been a systematic and persistent failure of the Polish authorities to speedily and effectively enforce the judgments to which they have committed under international law and order the return of abducted children to EU member states. This is not simply a problem affecting our constituents here in the UK; it is a matter of some moment across Europe.
Separately to this case, a matter has been heard in the European Court of Justice, where a Polish court of appeal asked the ECJ whether, in accordance with the Brussels II provisions and The Hague convention, it could provide an additional stage of appeal, which would in effect result in an automatic delaying tactic in Poland. It would mean that the enforcement of a final return order, which under international law should be expedited, would be at best delayed, on a simple request by one of the various authorities lodging such an appeal.
In January, the response of the advocate general of the European Union argued that, by adopting such a provision, the Polish legislature had exceeded the limits of its competence and had rendered the return proceedings ineffective. That is the source of the enormous frustration that so many of us are facing with our constituents. Due process of law in the United Kingdom and other countries has resulted in an outcome—an outcome where we are not required to judge the merits, but where we can have confidence in the due process of law—and yet that outcome is simply not being respected.
Given these cases before the European Union and matters that have been dealt with in the UK, it is perhaps not surprising that constituents are approaching their Members of Parliament. They have little faith that the due process of law will result in the relevant authorities delivering on the required court orders to return their children to the United Kingdom.
As well as the legal issues that I have set out, we need to recognise that the extensive delays and the enormous cost of engaging this process have placed a huge and sometimes nearly intolerable burden on many constituents. International law, and law in general, is there to ensure that justice is done and wrongs are put right. It is very clear to date that we are not seeing these significant wrongs put right.
The question then becomes: what recourse do our constituents have when they face such a situation? The legalities are very clearcut. It is highly likely that a case that was taken to the European Court of Human Rights would result in a finding against the Polish authorities, but that is of no comfort when the situation of the abducted children remains exactly as it was before, and a compensation payment and note of wrongdoing simply do not bring about anything like the resolution required by the affected families.
The proceedings brought by the European Union are likely to take a long time to reach a conclusion, and they will certainly test the limits of what power the European Union has when a member state simply refuses to abide by a treaty that it has freely signed. In the circumstances, we must pay tribute to the determination of all these parents—mums and dads—who are continuing to fight for the return of their children in a truly remarkable way. Yet we simply cannot treat each as an isolated case when there are so many consistent themes emerging.
I will move to my conclusion. While my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham set out to welcome the support that the Government have provided thus far, the fact is that in the case of her constituent, as well as a number of similar cases linked to other Members, the children are still overseas, despite court orders for their return, and there is still much work to be done to reunite them with their families here.
Poland is an old and important ally of the UK. Our friendship dates back many years, and my constituency and local area is home to many of Polish heritage. The nearby Polish war memorial in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency celebrates our shared military endeavours in world war two. We should not face a situation where a trusted and valued ally refuses to reciprocate the respect that we show to the judgment of their courts, as required under international law. My ask of the Minister is this. We need to take seriously the plight of our constituents and their abducted children and, in the spirit of what is and will remain a strong and friendly relationship with an important ally, place the evidence before their Government and seek swift and just compliance, with the decisions arising from the due process of law, as our international legal framework requires.
The constituency case that has been brought to my attention, which I think illustrates the issue well, is that of a father whose children were taken to northern Cyprus in 2018. The two parents separated in 2011. Residence proceedings began for two brothers who were then aged four and two years old. There were seven years of litigation, which again is not uncommon, because one parent made it as difficult as possible for the court to do its work over that period. There were many court hearings and appeals, and much turmoil, and a final appeal decision in 2018 unambiguously granted custody to the father.
The children, who were four and two at the beginning of the process, were 10 and eight at the end of the proceedings in this country. They were then taken out of this jurisdiction and are now aged 15 and 13. They have spent most of their lives embroiled in litigation or its consequences, because on the day before the final appeal decision was handed down, and in knowledge of what that decision was likely to be, the mother fled to the TRNC with the two children, following a convoluted route that went from Scotland to Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland to Turkey and then finally to northern Cyprus. One can infer from those facts that she knew exactly what was happening and that there was a disregard for the law in this country. The father has not seen his children since and has had no contact with them. He continues to instruct counsel in northern Cyprus, again at further significant personal cost, to try to arrange some visitation rights. However, any attempts to have his children returned to him have encountered immovable barriers.
All the proceedings through all the UK courts are not taken into consideration. I think they will be read for reference, but clearly they do not apply in northern Cyprus. There is likely to be some bias towards resident rather than non-resident parents; clearly, neither the father nor the children is at fault for that. There is also no role for child welfare—that is, it is a pure consideration of rights of visitation. The whole process is starting again, with the time and the costs and everything else that that involves.
A return order is in place. The UK authorities, like the father, are aware of the children’s location in northern Cyprus, but there has been no action. The courts in England and Wales recognise the father as the legal guardian of the children, but they are powerless to bring them home unless the mother co-operates with the return order, which all her conduct so far has shown that she will not, or unless—this is the point of my taking part in the debate—the UK authorities are able in any way to intervene. This is not an isolated case. As I am sure the Minister has been made aware, other parents face a similar ordeal to be reunited with their children with little or no support or guidance on how they to do that.
It is easy to find out, simply by internet research, that some organisations give advice and assistance to help those who wish to leave this jurisdiction to do so, and a number of parents have specifically gone to northern Cyprus because they know of the jurisdictional problems —or fracture—and that it is therefore a place where they can more easily escape the enforcement of judgments by UK courts. The Government should be particularly concerned about that, if there is an organised flouting of court orders that brings the whole process into disrepute. I am told that this has been going on for more than 10 years.
As I have said, there are now a growing number of cases—word gets round, people find out. In my experience, this is quite an unusual form of child abduction. It is going to a location with which the errant parent may have no connection. It is not, as is often the case, somebody taking a child back to their own country of birth, or where they have existing contact links or other family. This is about purely using a jurisdiction that is unlawful in the eyes of many countries, including the UK, in order to escape attention.
To be honest, it is not good enough for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to say that there is nothing that it can do about this, and, effectively, that is what it says. If we look up the TRNC on the FCDO website, we will see that there is a specific footnote to say that there is nothing that it can do in child abduction cases. That is not satisfactory. It may be that the Minister cannot give a full response today on what legislation or other steps would be needed, but I hope that this is at least the start of a dialogue that will look at that. I would like to hear from the Government what their thoughts are on this matter. I would also like the Minister’s agreement that we can go away and look at the cases of children taken to the TNRC specifically against the rulings of the courts in this country.
Perhaps I should add that there is some below-the-radar contact between the two jurisdictions. There have been examples in serious criminal cases of co-operation between the law enforcement agencies of both countries. I am told that we recognise the qualifications gained through the education system in northern Cyprus. I know that in this country property is advertised for sale in that area and, indeed, that many holiday companies in the UK will offer holidays there as well.
I understand the Government’s dilemma that they do not want to give plausibility or credibility to a country that has been illegally occupied for a number of decades, but the fact remains that it is in people’s humanitarian interests—and, it appears, in commercial interests, as well as, in some cases, law enforcement interests—for business to be done in that way. I would say that child abduction cases are certainly as serious a matter as commercial dealings and recognition of qualifications. It is clear that there are practical means, as well as some legal means, that can deal with this situation.
Before I conclude, let me suggest one or two other things that could be done. The first is that there is no legal aid available for non-Hague convention cases, which seems a double unfairness. Many parents fighting to bring their children home face huge pressures on their finances and, no doubt, some simply cannot afford to continue. Such proceedings can be ruinously expensive and can run on for years—often through deliberate delay in the courts. Unless there is some financial assistance—this should not be a matter of how deep people’s pockets are—it may be that some families will never be reunited and children will remain separated from their parents.
I would also like the FCDO to look at how we engage specifically with individual countries and jurisdictions on the issue. Clearly, there is not a one-size-fits-all answer. It would be useful to have a clear procedure that applies to the TNRC as well as to other countries where there are particular problems. It would also help if there were a more proactive role for Government to work with parents in that position to identify pathways for the return of their children. To prevent what happened in this case, the Government could consider the suspension of children’s passports during residence proceedings to limit the chance of children being taken abroad to avoid complying with court orders.
I will leave my remarks there. I am interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) says. What I am looking for from the Minister is an acknowledgment that there are particular problems with the TRNC and such countries, and that they are not being addressed now. I would like some idea of what the Government think can be done. If there are other matters that can be raised in correspondence after this debate, then so be it, but I would like to see a willingness to engage with myself and my constituent, as well as other people who have been affected in the same way, to address the issue.
The problem has been going on for far too long now. It has been put into the “too difficult” column because of political and jurisdictional issues. However, as a consequence, court orders made in this country are being flouted, and, more importantly, children are growing up without seeing parents because one parent does not like the judgment they have been dealt. I hope we can make some progress today, although I realise it is the beginning, rather than the end, of the matter.
I do not wish to return to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, and the way in which he outlined the legal situation, but I will touch on two areas. First, I am from Polish stock; my mother’s father was very proud of being Polish and I have always had a great affinity with that country. As has been alluded to in more than one speech, Poland is a great ally of this nation on many fronts. I appreciate that we recently left the European Union—there was a bit of news about that—which has changed the relationship in some ways. Nevertheless, diplomatically, I feel that parental child abduction is one of the great sore points in our relationship with that great nation.
I appeal to the Polish authorities and indeed the Polish Government to take stock and think. If the shoe were on the other foot, would a similar reaction be acceptable? Various legal procedures have been followed by many of our constituents, yet they still are not getting anywhere. I am great friends with the Minister. I know that she is always assiduous in researching every debate that she responds to, but I ask her directly whether the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is giving enough resources and priority to these cases. It feels to me as though we are finding officials at a very junior level, but the engagement that is necessary at a more senior level is perhaps being denied to our constituents.
I would also like to touch on what it is like emotionally for the parents involved. I mentioned the great financial and personal cost; Mr Fletcher sold his house, moved back in with his parents, moved jobs so that he can work more shifts and has gone out to Poland almost once every six weeks to try to retrieve his daughter. He spends every pound that he can gain on trying to return his daughter. It is really important to say that he loves his daughter very much. She is his world. He has lost not just his marriage, but the thing that came from his marriage that he is so fond of. When we have these debates, we must cover the technical, legal and diplomatic aspects, but we must also remember the individuals behind the stories.
I am not prone to hugging the constituents who come to my surgeries. I think I would have even fewer attendees if it was well known that I did. But I have to be honest; I spent half an hour with Mr Fletcher, who I had met previously, and I had nothing helpful to say to him beyond, “I will try and I will work with other hon. Members who are dealing with similar situations.” In those circumstances, we need to remember those individuals. A hug is meaningless in a surgery unless I can stand here and tell the Minister that this is what we are facing and unless she can go back to her Department and all those officials who speak to the Polish Government and others on a regular basis and make it a priority, because Mr Fletcher really needs our help.
The sad reality is that, in 2021, over 1,200 cases involving child abduction were considered by the UK courts. That is not just a handful of children. But the core problem, and the reason why we are here today, is that Brexit left a gaping hole in the legal framework that is supposed to protect children and parents from this crime and ensure that children return to their settled homes. There is a human right to a family life—a human right to live with your family and, where this is not possible, the right to regular contact, which is being contravened by the situation at the moment.
Up until the withdrawal agreement, families could rely on the Brussels II regulation. That piece of EU law provided greater protection for victims of child abduction by ensuring the reciprocal enforcement of family court orders. In matters of child abduction, if the child is not returned under the 1980 Hague convention, the court in the country from which the child was abducted can make its own finding as to whether return is necessary, which is automatically enforceable in the other country. The process is generally quick and completed within a matter of weeks, and it enables that human right to be upheld, but this vital protection was stripped from the statute book after Brexit and has not been replaced.
The most frustrating thing is that, in the intervening years, the Government seem to have been tone deaf to the problem and have not yet worked out a solution, so I have been reading the views of the current Secretary of State in various pieces of correspondence. What he has said so far suggests that he has not really turned his full attention to the issue or worked hard to get a solution. For instance, he said that:
“The Government is satisfied that the 1980 Hague convention provides an appropriate mechanism to seek the return of children wrongfully removed from the country of habitual residence.”
However, I do not agree with that and neither do victims. It is not what we are seeing from families coming to us. It may be true of certain countries, but there is huge variation in how rigorously the convention is applied. The UK and Australia may be held up as examples of good practice in returning children swiftly, but some countries rarely return children promptly, if at all.
We have focused on Poland today, and I agree that Poland is a strong ally and a friend of our country. I have many Polish constituents who are a valuable part of our community, but Poland seems to be one of the problem countries in this regard. Estimates from Polish family lawyers suggest that less than 5% of all abducted children are returned, and a look at the latest publicly available data shows that the number of returns from Poland is consistently below the global average. Last year, legislation was passed in Poland that allows the return of a child to be suspended if the prosecutor general, the commissioner for children’s rights or the commissioner for human rights issues an extraordinary appeal to the Supreme Court. For whatever reason, there seems to be growing resistance in the Polish courts to return children under The Hague convention, which is why it is important to hold this debate now and to solve the problem before it becomes embedded.
It was very concerning to read the Secretary of State’s view that the UK must respect the jurisdiction and laws of Poland. I agree that we must respect those laws, but the Polish courts need to respect the decisions of our courts and the rights and welfare of British children who have been taken from their home. The Government may well argue that additional protections exist in the form of the 1996 Hague convention, which reinforces the 1980 convention by underlining the primary role played by the authorities of the child’s habitual residence in deciding on matters that affect the child in the long term. In short, it helps with enforcement, but there are big problems with this option too.
First, it is far slower, usually taking around a year to be processed. A year of young children’s lives is a year far too long. Secondly, the 1996 Hague convention allows the country to which children have been abducted to exercise discretion. The destination country may choose to ignore this on domestic policy grounds. Therefore, in certain countries, where there is resistance to returns, the return of abducted children may be near impossible, and that cannot be justice.
The main takeaway from this is clear: ending our participation in the Brussels regulations has left victims of child abductions and our own courts worse off. I end with some questions to the Minister. Why are the Government dragging their heels on reinstating the Brussels regulations? Can she provide any good reasons for their doing so? Will she recognise the serious pitfalls and inadequacies in The Hague conventions? What discussions has she had with countries with a low return rate, such as Poland, and will she recognise the fact that that is the situation? How can we ensure that their courts respect decisions made in our courts? Will she meet hon. Members who are here today, in this debate, to look at the particular cases that we are raising? I implore the Minister to show common sense and justice, and restore Britain’s participation in the reciprocal enforcement of court-ordered child arrangements under—