The three speeches/headings immediately before

1. 1 earlier: Edward Davey

   The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, but I would point out that the noble Baroness Thatcher, in her first Administration, appointed a Foreign Secretary who was in the other place. The Conservatives therefore need to be slightly careful on this matter— [ Interruption. ] The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) cannot simply say that that was a long time ago. It was at the time of the Franks inquiry, and I could take him back to another point that does not reflect well on his party.

   The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston made a very good speech, although I have to say that, when I was on the doorsteps, I found that those who wanted to engage in a debate on the European issue—some of whom were hostile to my opinions—actually relished the opportunity to do so. They saw it as separate from all the other issues that we debate as politicians. So I would not want to see the elections go away; they are a healthy part of our democracy. And let us face it: the whole debate in the media and in this place in the run-up to the elections was dominated not by Europe but by expenses. That was one reason why the campaign was quite disappointing.

   I had an interesting radio debate with the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) during the campaign. He and I were eager and enthusiastic in that debate, because it was the only one that we had in the broadcast media throughout the whole campaign. We disagreed vehemently on the issues, but we both felt that it was quite wrong that that was the only time that Front-Bench spokesmen had been allowed on to the media to debate Europe during a European election campaign. We need those debates during our campaigns, in order to connect with the voters. Yes, there might have been exceptional circumstances, but the media need to be criticised for not attempting to compensate for them.

2. 2 earlier: Peter Bone

   There is no Europe Minister here.

3. 3 earlier: Edward Davey

   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—