WHAT sort of world do we want for our children? It was a fair question, posed to me by Richard Ashworth, MEP for South-East England as we sat chatting over dinner in Brussels.

The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the creation of what has now evolved into the EU.

I had just missed Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor and current European President, but my first experience of the European Parliament in action had nevertheless been fascinating.

After an afternoon of touring the corridors of the Parliament building and watching its members in action during a sparsely attended debate on the future of Kosovo - an area over which the EU has no mandate to interfere - we were now sat in a small, surprisingly empty restaurant a stone's throw from Parliament's main entrance in Place de Luxembourg.

Mr Ashworth, whose constituency covers Hampshire, returned to his theme.

I had just repeated a conversation with my 15-year-old daughter in which I had struggled to explain what the EU Parliament actually does.

I had not been helped by the fact she knew little or nothing of its existence despite ten years of education.

Taking everything into account, the animosity, suspicion, scepticism surrounding the role of Europe in our lives, where did he see its main purpose?

If I had expected some Tory party line on less federation and more trade I was to be surprised as he addressed the issue of the needs of the next generation.

"It isn't really a matter of what they want from Europe, it's what we want for them.

"And I would say that's three things: peace, for prosperity to continue, and for changes to the environment.

"We are in danger of being the first generation to hand over to our children a worse environment than we inherited. This is where Europe should be concentrating its efforts."