Alex Salmond accused of hiding behind Leveson

ALEX Salmond faced fresh calls yesterday to answer questions at Holyrood about his relationship with Rupert Murdoch’s News International.

The latest row came after Lord Justice Leveson defended his inquiry into media standards and said that he “was not in any way” seeking to challenge the rights of Parliament to examine any of the issues his inquiry is covering.

Commons Speaker John Bercow had said that Parliament should come first when a number of MPs raised concerns that Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt was being shielded from full scrutiny over his links with News International because of his impending appearance before the inquiry.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie seized on the comments from Lord Leveson to call on Mr Salmond to make a statement to the Scottish Parliament about his News International links and to answer questions about whether he has been a victim of phone hacking.

Mr Salmond has insisted that he will wait until his appearance before the Leveson Inquiry on 13 June to discuss issues linked to phone hacking.

Mr Rennie said: “Alex Salmond has used his upcoming appearance at Leveson as a get-out-of-jail free card.

“The First Minister should come before the Scottish Parliament and answer detailed questions about his relationship to the Murdoch family, trade-offs with News International and disclose if his phone was hacked or not.”

However, a spokesman for the First Minister yesterday insisted that the Leveson inquiry was the “appropriate place” to discuss such issues about News International.