MPs will debate phone hacking furore in the House of Commons
MPs will today debate calls for a public inquiry into phone hacking after claims that murdered teenager Milly Dowler's phone was hacked.
As UK plc expresses its outrage over continuing revelations and Machiavellian twists and turns into The Guardian’s claims that an investigator working for the News of the World hacked into Millie’s phone in 2002, police investigating phone hacking claims have also contacted the parents of the murdered schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, it has emerged.
The Labour Party are calling for a public inquiry once the police investigation ends as MPs prepare to debate the issue for three hours this afternoon - following prime minister's questions.
Labour leader Ed Miliband has also said Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of the News of the World at the time Milly Dowler went missing in 2002, should "consider her position" and "examine her conscience".
The government says it wants to consider the outcome of the police investigation and other inquiries before deciding whether a public inquiry is needed.
But the former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Fowler has also urged ministers to commit to holding an independent inquiry - including into the roles of the police and Press Complaints Commission - once the criminal investigation was complete.
On the BBC website, Norman Smith, chief political correspondent of BBC Radio 4, writes: “There's usually precious little sympathy for MPs complaining about the media.
“Governments, too, have traditionally been deeply reluctant to take on the press. And yet this time there is a strong sense the media may not escape so lightly.
“For a start, there appears to be a broad cross-party consensus behind the calls for an inquiry and a deep gut feeling among many MPs that sections of the media are out of control.
“Secondly, the nature of the claims over Milly Dowler and the Sham parents are so shocking, many at Westminster believe it's all but impossible for Parliament to shrug its shoulders and walk on by.
“But most importantly, public indignation is such that MPs for the first time have public opinion fully behind them in seeking to rein in sections of the media.
“Such a combination may make it all but impossible for ministers - whatever their understandable caution about antagonizing the media - not to at least signal a willingness to consider an inquiry once the police investigations are over.
“The Guardian has claimed private investigator Glenn Mulcaire intercepted messages left by relatives for 13-year-old Milly when she was missing in 2002, and that the News of the World deleted some messages it had already listened to in order to make space for more to be left.
“News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks - who was editor of the News of the World at the time - has said the claims are ‘almost too horrific to believe’ and pledged the ‘strongest possible action’ if they prove to be true. She has said it is ‘inconceivable’ that she had known about it at the time.
“On Tuesday the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was jailed for six months in 2007 for hacking into the phones of royal aides, released a statement apologizing ‘to anybody who was hurt or upset by what I have done’ - without directly referencing the Milly Dowler allegations.
“He said working for the News of the World had put him under ‘relentless pressure’ but that he had never intended to interfere with any police investigation into any crime.
“Lawyers acting for the Dowler family say that the deletion of messages from Millie’s phone after her disappearance could have led relatives to hold ‘false hope’ that the teenager were still alive, increasing their agony.
“Labour MP Chris Bryant, who believes his own phone was hacked by the News of the World, made the case for an emergency debate on Tuesday, which was granted by Speaker John Bercow.
“Mr Bryant accused the News of the World of ‘playing God with a family's emotions’ in the case of Milly Dowler and said he also wanted the debate to look at the role of the Metropolitan Police.
“Prime Minister David Cameron has said, if the allegations are true, it was a ‘truly dreadful act’. But the government has not committed to hold an independent inquiry, instead stressing that the current police investigation into events was the ‘absolute priority’.
Hacked Off, a campaign supported by the actor Hugh Grant, former deputy PM Lord Prescott, Lord Fowler, Mr Bryant, Lib Dem MP Adrian Sanders and the Dowlers' lawyer, Mark Lewis, has started an online petition calling for a full public inquiry.”
The Press Complaints Commission, which in 2009 issued a report clearing News International of wrongdoing, has defended its role.
PCC chairman Baroness Buscombe told the BBC's Daily Politics programme she was angry that the PCC had been misled by the News of the World and added: "There's only so much we can do when people are lying to us."