Phone Hacking and the Media

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I hope that what I have announced today will reassure the hon. Lady, because we are having a judge-led inquiry that will look into all illegal and improper activities, including the kind of activities that she has mentioned. That inquiry will be statutory, and it will have the ability to compel witnesses, who will speak under oath, so we will get to the bottom of the kind of activities that she describes and ensure that we stamp them out.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it was wrong for ordinary staff at the News of the World to have been sacrificed in an effort by News International to protect those at the very top of the organisation who were really responsible for the scandal at that newspaper? Does he therefore agree that Rebekah Brooks should resign from her post forthwith?

[Mr Hunt]

I think everyone should be held to account for their actions, whether they are the people personally responsible for phone hacking or the people who authorised it.