Whittingdale calls time on newspapers

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The chair of the culture, media and sport committee has told the Commons that press regulation must include new media.

Speaking in today’s special debate on public confidence in the media and police, John Whittingdale said “we may not have newspapers in this country” in the near future as a result of the internet.

“We need to bear in mind that the media is changing beyond all recognition,” he told the House.

Whittingdale praised James and Rupert Murdoch’s “helpful” appearance before the committee yesterday to give evidence on alleged criminal activity at the News of the World.

However, he said there had been “an undoubted failure of corporate governance” at the new defunct newspaper’s parent company News International, which in turn is owned by News Corp.

"That is something that may exercise the minds of shareholders at News Corp and perhaps even the American authorities," Whittingdale said.

Keith Vaz, chair of the home affairs committee, said their investigation into phone hacking has uncovered “a catalogue of failures” by the Metropolitan police.

He accused former senior Met officer Andy Hayman of a “deliberately cavalier attitude to relations with News International”.

Assistant commissioner John Yates, who resigned earlier this week, was guilty of “serious misjudgement” when he chose not to reopen a police investigation into hacking.

Vaz said he hopes the public inquiry under Lord Leverson into relations between the press, media and police will make recommendations “as soon as possible”.

“The victims want closure, what we would all like is closure,” he told the House.

Vaz also criticised mobile phone companies – only O2 informed their customers they may have been hacked.

"The others either did not inform their customers or waited for the police to tell them that the inquiry was over so their customers remained uninformed about the hacking," he said.

The prime minister opened the debate - parliament was recalled from its summer break to discuss the matter.

David Cameron told MPs he is in favour of “a free and vibrant media completely unafraid to challenge authority”.

"We must never again see this widespread law-breaking, including the terrible crimes committed against people who have already suffered,” he told the House.

"We shouldn't assume these practices extend across all media, some of which has an excellent reputation, but neither should we think this is isolated to one institution."

Labour leader Ed Miliband said the phone hacking scandal is a moment to consider the “fabric” of the country

“We do not want to live in a country where the depraved deletion of the voicemail of a dead teenager is seen as acceptable, in which the police's failure to investigate it is seen as just the way things are, and in which politicians' failure to tackle it is seen as the way things are,” he said.