European Affairs

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) has made in interesting speech. People who describe themselves as pro-European, as well as those who are slightly sceptical—I know that she does not like that term—about the direction of travel in the European Union will be able to agree with much of what she said. It was also interesting that she seemed to be forming a leadership team for the Foreign Secretary during her speech. The hon. Lady mentioned the need to reconnect with voters, and that is really important. She will not be surprised to learn that I draw different conclusions from hers, but there are ideas that we can share across the House and across the parties. For example, I think that we should have a Question Time in this House on European affairs as part of our regular questions. Putting European matters in with Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions, for example, pushes too much into an hour of questions. It would be good for accountability to separate them out. That would be a relatively modest reform, and I think that we could find agreement on it across the House. Perhaps it would help to get these issues debated more regularly—