Lawmakers: Piers Morgan should discuss hacking

John Whittingdale, chairman of Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport committee, which has examined Britain’s phone-hacking scandal, said Morgan should return to the U.K. to answer questions _ although not from his panel of lawmakers, which famously grilled Rupert Murdoch and his son James last month.

He said the panel’s remit is focused only on allegations against the News of the World, but that a police inquiry into hacking may be interested to hear from Morgan. “Certainly if there is evidence implicating other newspapers then that needs to be part of that investigation,” Whittingdale told Sky News.

Conservative legislator Therese Coffey, a member of Whittingdale’s committee, also urged Morgan to return. “I think it would help everybody, including himself and this investigation, if he was able to say more about why he wrote what he did in 2006,” she told the BBC’s Newsnight program on Wednesday.

In a separate development, the publisher of Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper announced late Thursday that it was reviewing its editorial procedures. No reason for the review was given, but the entire tabloid newspaper industry has been under a cloud since news of phone hacking was first made public. Piers Morgan is one of many who’ve claimed that a host of different publications engaged in the practice.

Associated Newspapers Ltd., which publishes the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, said in a terse statement that Liz Hartley, the company’s head of editorial legal services, would be among those working on the review.

Few other details were revealed, and Hartley did not immediately return emails seeking further comment.

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David Stringer and Jill Lawless contributed to this report.

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