MPs from all sides called for the multibillion-pound takeover of BSkyB by News Corporation to be put on hold until police finish investigating phone-hacking claims involving the News of the World.
Ed Miliband was joined by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in urging ministers against waving the deal through. A consultation process is due to end at noon tomorrow after which Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, will decide whether to approve it.
Officials indicated that it could be weeks before Mr Hunt digests responses to the consultation. Mr Hunt said last month that he was minded to approve the deal without referring it to the Competition Commission after News Corp agreed fresh conditions on top of spinning off Sky News, the satellite broadcaster’s news channel.
Mr Miliband said that the public would react with disbelief if the deal went ahead when News International, which publishes The Times and is a subsidiary of News Corp, “is subject to a major criminal investigation and we do not yet know who charges will be laid against”.
Mr Miliband’s call for the deal to be referred to the Competition Commission, at Prime Minister’s Questions, marked a shift in his stance. The previous day he said that the issues of media ownership and hacking were distinct. He also toughened his rhetoric in relation to Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, by calling on her to stand down.
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David Cameron said that to confuse the issue of media plurality with the police investigation at the News of the World would be to breach the quasi-judicial role in which Mr Hunt was acting. It would leave the Government vulnerable to judicial review, he said. The Government was following “absolutely to the letter” the correct legal process.
The issue resurfaced during a three-hour debate in which MPs, speaking under the protection of parliamentary privilege, accused News International executives of being complicit in wrongdoing, police chiefs of failing to investigate the hacking claims properly, and each other of a failure to wake up earlier to the gravity of the malpractice.
Chris Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda, who secured the debate, said that Parliament had been “systematically” lied to by the News of the World and a “very dirty smell” surrounded the police’s handling of the original phone-hacking inquiry. He said: “The private voicemail messages of victims of crime should never, ever have become a commodity to be traded between journalists and private investigators for a cheap story and a quick sale.”
The News of the World “was not the only magician in the dark arts” and that “the whole of the political system” had failed to act earlier.
Dominic Grieve, the Attorney-General, cautioned the public against expecting quick answers. He said that the Government would begin its inquiries as soon as possible. “Nevertheless, the burning desire of many people to see finality in this matter and truth to be revealed may take some time.”
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Nicholas Soames, the Tory MP for Mid Sussex, urged the Government to suspend the planned takeover by News Corporation of BSkyB while the hacking allegations were investigated.
Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Liberal Democrat leader, said that the Government, as “overall regulator” of the media, had discretion to consider whether directors of a firm had been “fulfilling their public obligations”.
Frank Dobson, the former Labour Cabinet minister, said that if News International, “with their record of wrongdoing they have admitted so far”, were to apply to run a London minicab firm, they would be turned down. “If they’re not fit and proper people to run a minicab firm, how can they be a fit and proper outfit to take over a monopoly of a whole television channel?”
Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, called for James Murdoch, News Corporation deputy chief operating officer and chairman and CEO, International, to be suspended for “what I believe was his personal authorisation to plan a cover-up of this scandal”.
He said: “It is clear now that he personally, without board approval, authorised money to be paid to silence people who had been hacked and to cover up criminal behaviour within his organisation.” Mr Watson said that police should ask Mr Murdoch and Ms Brooks what they knew of the attempted destruction of data at an HCL storage facility in Chennai, India.
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He also said he believed that the conviction of Tommy Sheridan, the Scottish Socialist jailed for perjury in a case involving the News of the World, was unsound. Andy Coulson, Mr Cameron’s former communications chief and a former News of the World Editor, gave evidence at Mr Sheridan’s trial.
Bob Stewart, the Tory MP for Beckenham, said that Ms Brooks was responsibile for what had happened at the News of the World. “If she doesn’t resign, the person above her must understand that it falls to him to sack her.”
Simon Hughes, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that police were guilty of “endemic” corruption over their links with journalists.
Alan Johnson supported calls for an inquiry even if it proved “awkward” for him as the man who was Home Secretary at the time of the first police investigation that MPs on all sides criticised for failing to follow the evidence.
Adrian Sanders, the Lib Dem MP for Torbay, said that the present system of Press self-regulation had failed. He likened the “toothless” Press Complaints Commission to a “chocolate teapot”.