David Cameron is facing questions in the Commons about his response to the phone hacking scandal.
He has cut short a trip to Africa to take part in an emergency debate on confidence in the media and the police, shaken by alleged malpractice at the News of the World and the resignations of two senior Met Police officers. Labour says he still has questions to answer about his decision to employ former NoW editor Andy Coulson.
It says No 10 ignored warnings on this.
Downing Street released emails on Tuesday showing that Mr Cameron's chief of staff Ed Llewellyn had prevented senior police officers briefing the Tory leader on the phone-hacking investigation.
Mr Coulson's former deputy at the News of the World, Neil Wallis, also gave "informal" advice to the Conservative Party ahead of the election, the party has confirmed.
Both Mr Wallis and Mr Coulson have since been arrested and questioned by detectives on the new phone-hacking inquiry launched earlier this year.
In other developments in the phone hacking saga:
- Speaker John Bercow launches an independent investigation into the incident at Rupert Murdoch's committee hearing on Tuesday, saying it was "wholly unacceptable"
- The Met Police is accused of a "catalogue of failures" over the News of the World phone-hacking inquiry in a damning report by MPs
- Downing Street and Buckingham Palace strongly deny claims by Labour MP Chris Bryant that royal officials raised concerns about Mr Coulson's appointment
- The protester accused of throwing a paper plate of shaving foam at Rupert Murdoch as he gave evidence to the Commons media select committee has been charged with a public order offence. Jonathan May-Bowles, 26, will appear before City of Westminster Magistrates Court on Friday
- Shares in News Corporation rose by 6% at the close of trading in New York after Rupert and James Murdoch's appearance in front of the committee
- The law firm hired by News International in 2007 to review allegations of phone hacking says it is being prevented from responding to "inaccurate" comments made by James Murdoch. Mr Murdoch said a letter written by the law firm made executives at News International believe that hacking was a "matter of the past". Harbottle and Lewis says it is not being allowed to breach client confidentiality
- Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the Australian arm of News Corp will have to answer "hard questions"
Mr Cameron will make a statement to Parliament at 11.30am about the terms of reference for the judicial inquiry into phone hacking, police corruption and the future of press regulation, after which he will answer MPs' questions.
'Coulson mistake' This will be followed by a general debate on public confidence in the media and police which could last up to six hours.
Labour, which pressed strongly for the debate, say Mr Cameron must answer questions about the role of Ed Llewellyn, who they claim was twice given important information relating to phone hacking and "refused to pass it on" to the prime minister.
"He (David Cameron) knows he took a risk in employing Andy Coulson and that has not paid off - it was a mistake to have done so," said Labour MP Chris Bryant.
"But on top of that we have got this impression of lots of people trying to tell the prime minister not to go ahead with this but nobody in Downing Street ever letting the prime minister hear bad news."Mr Cameron has said he "sought and received assurances" from Mr Coulson over phone hacking before appointing him as his press chief in 2007 - a position he resigned from in January.
BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell had made it clear that it would have been totally inappropriate for the prime minister to get any private briefing from the police about an ongoing inquiry.
But he said the real test for Mr Cameron on Wednesday was whether he could convince MPs and the public that he had done all that needed to be done to address public concerns.
Ahead of the debate, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said News Corporation still had questions to answer about why Rupert Murdoch and other executives did not know about the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World.
Murdoch e-mail The culture secretary told the BBC he was "shocked" that "people at the top" did not know about the apparent wrongdoing.
Click to play
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said News Corporation still had questions to answer about ''malpractice''
He said he felt "betrayed" by certain executives within News International but did not pinpoint those he felt were responsible so as not to prejudice the police investigation.
On Wednesday, the News Corporation boss sent an e-mail to all employees, saying that those responsible must "be held accountable under the law".
'Shocked' Mr Hunt, who has responsibility for media regulation, said he was "worried" by what had been said by Mr Murdoch and his son James - chairman of News International.
"The question that News International have to answer is why malpractice happened throughout a very important part of their organisation without people like Rupert Murdoch knowing.
"What shocked me listening yesterday was the fact that so much wrongdoing seemed to happen without the knowledge of the people at the top.
"It does seem like a huge amount was going wrong in that organisation and no-one felt it necessary to tell the person at the top and I think that is something that will have worried a lot of people."
0 comments:
Post a Comment