EU Council

Richard Burden Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I did not know the Prime Minister had quite such a compendious knowledge of modern music. I am extraordinarily impressed.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

I am not going to ask the Prime Minister to remember any more lyrics. He will have heard right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House talk about the importance of manufacturing to the midlands. In Prime Minister’s questions, he will also have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) refer to the comments of Sadiq Khan about London having a voice in the preparations for negotiations and in the negotiations themselves. I absolutely agree with that. However, will the Prime Minister say something about the mechanisms that he envisages to allow regions outside of London to have a say in the preparations for negotiations and in the negotiations themselves?

[The Prime Minister]

What I can say, and perhaps I will set it out in more detail for the House on a later occasion, is that we need to find mechanisms—we have some already, like the Joint Ministerial Council—for listening to the constituent parts of the United Kingdom to make sure that the voices of our nations and regions can be heard as we design this renegotiation. I absolutely commit to that.