Business of the House

Alex Salmond Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. When we look at how to encourage a revival of the civic dynamism that characterised the growth of the great northern cities during the 19th and early 20th centuries, we need to think about economic stimuli and about how we can further encourage those cities as centres of educational and research excellence and as centres of culture and the arts. That is why the devolutionary model initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) and being taken forward by the present Government is so attractive. It enables elected authorities in the region itself to work across the piece on policies that address the cultural and educational issues, alongside those simply to do with economics.

[Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)]

Will the Leader of the House assure us that next week’s debate on Europe will be broad enough to encompass today’s opinion poll finding that 90% of the country wants to be within the single marketplace? Given that I want to be in the single marketplace, that I know the Leader of the House wants to be in the single marketplace and that anybody with an ounce of a sense understands that in this Trumpian world of protectionist economics where the special relationship means being 11th in the telephone queue for a call with the new American President, we had better be in the single marketplace, will the Leader of the House now get up to the Dispatch Box and tell us that he actually understands the difference between access to a marketplace, which the association of Patagonian shoe manufacturers has, and being within the single marketplace, which should be the overwhelming priority of the Government to secure?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Business questions are about understanding—that is the only slight difference.