James Murdoch set to face MPs again

NEWS International executive chairman James Murdoch is to give evidence for a second time to a parliamentary investigation into phone-hacking on 10 November.

The announcement came after Mr Murdoch’s predecessor Les Hinton was quizzed by video-link by the cross-party Commons culture, media and sport committee.

Mr Hinton, the most senior casualty of the hacking scandal so far, told MPs there was “no reason” why Mr Murdoch should resign from his post at News International (NI).

A close lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch who had worked with the News Corp chief for more than 50 years, Mr Hinton quit as CEO of the company’s Dow Jones subsidiary in July as the scale of hacking which took place under his watch at NI-owned News of the World became apparent.

Mr Hinton acknowledged that some of the evidence given to the committee by NI executives, when they insisted that hacking at the Sunday tabloid was limited to a single rogue reporter, had turned out to be “not accurate”.

But he challenged MPs’ suggestions that this meant executives had been “untruthful”, insisting that events had become clear only over the past couple of years and the full picture of what happened was still not known.

And he told them: “I see no reason why James Murdoch should resign.”

James Murdoch took over responsibility for NI from Mr Hinton in December 2007.

While the bulk of alleged phone-hacking is believed to have happened during Mr Hinton’s time in charge, the crucial £425,000 out-of-court payment to Professional Footballers Association chief Gordon Taylor – sparked by the emergence of the “for Neville” e-mail, which proved that hacking went beyond a single reporter – took place after he had left.