The public inquiry: PM bows to pressure in the Commons

THE government yesterday bowed to pressure to hold public inquiries into the revelations that some newspapers hacked into phones and paid the police to get stories.

Prime Minister David Cameron told MPs that he was “disgusted” by the allegations centred around the News of the World and that inquiries were needed into the conduct of the media and also the police amid claims that the Metropolitan Police suppressed an earlier inquiry.

But on a tense day in the Commons he provoked fury from the opposition benches by insisting that the inquiries could not get going until the current police investigations have concluded.

During a grilling by Labour leader Ed Miliband in Prime Minister’s Questions a clearly uncomfortable Mr Cameron also refused to comment on the News of the World’s former editors Andy Coulson, who he later employed as director of communications in Downing Street, and Rebekah Brooks, currently chief executive of News International who is understood to be a friend.

Explaining why an inquiry had become necessary, Mr Cameron said that the revelations that the phone of murder victim Milly Dowler was hacked had been a turning point.

He said: “We are no longer talking here about politicians and celebrities, we are talking about murder victims, potentially terrorist victims, having their phones hacked into.

“It is absolutely disgusting, what has taken place, and I think everyone in this House and indeed this country will be revolted by what they have heard and what they have seen on their television screens.”

The Commons then saw an almost unprecedented emergency debate on the issue called by Welsh Labour MP Chris Bryant.

He claimed parliament had been “systematically lied to” by the newspaper.

A “very dirty smell” also surrounded the police’s handling of the original inquiry, he added. Mr Bryant told MPs: “I think a lot of lies have been told by a lot of people.”

Labour MP Tom Watson, who has been pressing the case for a public inquiry for several months, also demanded the suspension of James Murdoch, Mr Murdoch’s son and the chairman of News International.

In the Commons he alleged that James Murdoch attempted to pervert the course of justice.

He said: “It is clear now that he personally, without board approval, authorised money to be paid by his company to silence people who had been hacked and to cover up criminal behaviour within his organisation.”

Tory grandee Nicholas Soames said that the House and political classes had failed to act properly when the allegations first arose in 2006 with a report from the Information Commissioner detailing hundreds of examples of privacy being undermined by different national newspapers.

He also disagreed with the government for resisting pressure from Labour to suspend Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of BSkyB.

He said: “Would due process also include, given there is clear evidence of serious criminality on the part of some people at News International, without necessarily referring it to the Competition Commission, calling a pause pending further evidence?”