This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/31/jeremy-hunt-leveson-inquiry-live

The article has changed 16 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Jeremy Hunt at the Leveson inquiry - live Jeremy Hunt at the Leveson inquiry - live
(40 minutes later)
10.29am: Hunt says:
I think I had a concern about the situation where we had this very important, very significant merger in my sector where I didn't think there was a particular problem with it, but the organisation concerned said they did feel they were facing a number of obstacles with it.
10.28am: Hunt says he was asking for his "locus to express an opinion that might be taken into consideration by Dr Cable".
He interpreted the advice to mean he should not have an external conversation that could be seen as an intervention in Cable's oversight of the bid.
Hunt adds that he did not believe he could not speak to industry figures about the bid.
10.27am: The Guardian's Dan Sabbagh has just tweeted:
Just been shown a sheet of Michel/Hunt texts. Nov 16 from FM to JH "thanks for the call with james today...
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) May 31, 2012
and
...greatly appreciated will work with adam to make sure we can send you helpful arguments"
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) May 31, 2012
10.27am: Jay turns to Hunt's meeting with James Murdoch on 12 November 2010.
Hunt received legal advice on that same day to "not have external discussions about the bid" nor write to Vince Cable.
10.25am: Jay shows Hunt an email of 2 November 2010 and then on 9 November 2010 from Michel asking him to "meet JRM" on 15 November 2010.
Hunt texted back: "Great."
10.24am: The Guardian's deputy editor, Ian Katz, has just tweeted:
Some useful reading for Hunt at #Leveson. Bogdanor bit.ly/LQmj44Timeline bit.ly/I97mLM Cameron memo bit.ly/Ljbrfk
— ian katz (@iankatz1000) May 31, 2012
10.23am: Hunt says he does not believe other officials knew he received the briefing documents "nor would I have made a secret of it".
Asked why Smith sent the email to Hunt's personal account, the minister says that is the only email account he uses; his private secretary looks after his official DCMS account.
10.22am: Hunt is asked about the briefing documents from News Corp he described as "very powerful" in an email to Adam Smith, his special adviser.
Hunt explains that he did not believe there was a "major plurality issue" in the media merger.
10.20am: Hay asks how well Hunt knew Michel.
Hunt says he never socialised with Michel but got to know him well because they both had children in the same hospital at the same time.
10.19am: Hunt says he met Rebekah Brooks and Frédéric Michel at the Conservative conference in October 2010.
He adds that the News Corp pair complained they would not get a fair hearing from Vince Cable.
Hunt says that he may have expressed surprise that Cable believed there may have been a plurality issue with the bid.
10.17am: Hunt says he was told it was acceptable and at his discretion whether to have meetings with News Corp executives.
He admits having an unminuted meeting with Murdoch with no officials present on 20 June.
The Sky bid was probably discussed, he says.
10.16am: Jay presses Hunt on when he first learned of News Corp's BSkyB bid.
Hunt says he is not sure whether he was told about the bid before it was publicly announced, adding:
My view was that the Murdochs controlled BSkyB … so I didn't think there was a significant change in plurality.
10.14am: Hunt is asked whether he hid behind a tree to avoid being spotted at a party at which Murdoch was present.
The Daily Telegraph's Iain Martin offers his first-hand account of the incident here.
Hunt says he spotted a large group of media journalists outside the entrance and thought "this is not the time to have an impromptu interview and so I moved into a different quadrangle".
"There may or may not have been trees," Hunt adds, before Leveson urges Jay to move on.
10.12am: Hunt met News Corp executives on a trip to New York in September 2009.
He had "general discussions" with News Corp executives about broadcasting, but Murdoch was in London at the time. They spoke about impartiality rules, he says.
10.11am: Jay asks if Hunt agreed with Murdoch on "top slicing" the BBC licence fee.
"Generally speaking I didn't agree with him on the licence fee, full stop," Hunt says.
He points out that Murdoch opposes the licence fee completely, whereas Hunt believes the BBC is an "important benchmark" for broadcasting quality.
10.08am: Hunt says he disagreed with the thrust of Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture remarks on the BBC.
Murdoch described the corporation's size and ambitions as "chilling" and accused it of mounting a "land grab" in a beleaguered media market.
You can read the full text of his speech here.
10.07am: Jay asks about meetings with James Murdoch.
In one meeting, Hunt and Murdoch spoke about reforming Ofcom.
Hunt says his focus in the meeting was local TV and superfast broadband but "I did not manage to excite much interest from him in either of those two issues."
10.07am: The Guardian's Dan Sabbagh has just tweeted:
Hunt looks a little weary, but focused on being outwardly calm.
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) May 31, 2012
10.05am: Hunt is asked about the comments on his personal website praising Rupert Murdoch's contribution to the British economy.
He explains that this section on his website feature press articles about him and that comment was by a journalist from Broadcast magazine "but it's not how I would describe myself".
Hunt says he puts up "positive or negative" comments on his website because he believes they are helpful to his constituents.
10.04am: Hunt has been an MP since 2005, shadow culture secretary, then culture secretary from May 2010.
10.02am: Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is sworn in and has taken the witness stand.
Robert Jay QC, lead counsel to the inquiry, is leading the questioning.
9.52am: The Guardian's John Plunkett has sent us this picture from outside the Royal Courts of Justice of protesters wearing Hunt and Cameron masks:
9.51am: Hunt has submitted more than 160 pages of internal memos, emails and text messages to the Leveson inquiry, according to the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson.
Robinson reports that Hunt originally believed that Adam Smith, his special adviser, had done nothing wrong in his contacts with News Corp's Frédéric Michel and that the culture secretary was prepared to resign himself.
9.51am: The Guardian's Dan Sabbagh has just tweeted:
My hunch: Jeremy Hunt has a 'fairly good' day; fends off the critics for a bit. But will he be culture sec long after the Olympics?
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) May 31, 2012
9.42am: The Guardian's Patrick Wintour has just tweeted:
J hunt seems to be briefing he offered to resign since he did not think, like his perm sect and the cab sect,his special adviser had erred
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) May 31, 2012
and
George Osborne is being reported as privately having opposed leveson's broad terms of reference.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) May 31, 2012
and
Labour will seek post-hunt evidence that cameron ask ind adviser on min code investigate hunt. If Cam says no, it is close to clearing Hunt.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) May 31, 2012
9.40am: Sky News's Mark White has posted video on Twitter of protesters wearing Hunt masks doing the lambada:
9.30am: Here is the list of questions Dan Sabbagh, Josh Halliday and Lisa O'Carroll ask Jeremy Hunt in the Guardian today:
1. Why did you agree to talk to James Murdoch on the telephone on 15 November, when you had been explicitly told by your permanent secretary that you could not meet him? Were you seeking to get information from him that could be used to influence David Cameron and pressurise Vince Cable?
2. Why did you draft a memo to the prime minister on 19 November, after having spoken to a "pretty furious" James Murdoch, asking that he intervene to rein in Vince Cable – after you had been told by the DCMS legal director, Patrick Kilgarriff, that it would be unwise to get involved?
3. What did you mean when you wrote that the coalition "could end up in the wrong place in terms of media policy" and that it would be a mistake to "cave in" to opponents of the bid? Why did you think it was appropriate to ask the prime minister to lean on Cable?
4. Why did you tone down your original memo? Why did you write in an earlier draft that the Tories "could end up in the wrong place politically?" Were you concerned that the Conservatives would lose the support of News Corporation and its newspapers? Did your conversation with James Murdoch on 15 November give rise to that concern?
5. Did you have any further discussion with Cameron, Osborne or other Conservative ministers after sending the memo as regards trying to influence Cable in the quasi-judicial process? And why did you tell parliament on 25 April 2012 that you made "absolutely no interventions seeking to influence a quasi-judicial decision that was at that time the responsibility of the secretary of state for business"?
6. When Gus O'Donnell was asked to determine if you could be an objective judge of the BSkyB bid, did you make him aware of the 19 November memo you wrote to the prime minister? If not, why not? Was it because it would have revealed the appearance of bias on your part?
7. Adam Smith said he knew "very much what [you] thought" and received an excellent performance review in December 2011. Given his acknowledged talent and knowledge of your ways of working, how can you maintain that you were unaware of "volume and tone" of Smith's contacts with Fred Michel during the bid?
8. Did you receive any advice about whether it was appropriate for you to consider the phone-hacking issue as relevant to your decision on the Sky bid? If so, what did that advice state, and when was it received? Why did you continue to insist that concern about hacking was immaterial to the bid – particular given that it was the reason the bid collapsed?
9. Were you aware that News Corp had been given an early copy of your 3 March 2011 statement to parliament on the proposed undertakings in lieu? Was it appropriate for your special adviser to be texting Michel at 3am with advance details of your Commons statement? Were you also aware that Michel believed he was passed information "although absolutely illegal" by your department on 23 January 2011?
10. Why did you hide behind a tree to avoid being seen by Wall Street Journal journalist Iain Martin at an evening event on 20 May 2010 where James Murdoch had just given a speech? What did you discuss at the subsequent dinner; were you tipped off about the impending BSkyB bid? Is is fair to say that you "wanted to be close to News International, and to have dinner with Murdoch, but didn't want to be seen as being close to News International"?
9.23am: Good morning and welcome to the Leveson inquiry.9.23am: Good morning and welcome to the Leveson inquiry.
Embattled culture secretary Jeremy Hunt will face sustained questioning today as the inquiry turns its focus to his dealings with Rupert Murdoch's media empire.Embattled culture secretary Jeremy Hunt will face sustained questioning today as the inquiry turns its focus to his dealings with Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
Hunt will be pressed on his controversial handling of News Corp's £8bn BSkyB takeover bid as the minister fights to save his political future.Hunt will be pressed on his controversial handling of News Corp's £8bn BSkyB takeover bid as the minister fights to save his political future.
Hunt has faced mounting questions about his apparent bias in favour of the News Corp bid since the inquiry published 160 pages of emails between his key aide, Adam Smith, and the News Corp lobbyist Frédéric Michel in April.Hunt has faced mounting questions about his apparent bias in favour of the News Corp bid since the inquiry published 160 pages of emails between his key aide, Adam Smith, and the News Corp lobbyist Frédéric Michel in April.
Hunt will be questioned for almost seven hours on whether he repeatedly misled parliament about his position on the bid, repeatedly claiming that he had made no interventions on the bid before he took control and had no unofficial contact with Michel.Hunt will be questioned for almost seven hours on whether he repeatedly misled parliament about his position on the bid, repeatedly claiming that he had made no interventions on the bid before he took control and had no unofficial contact with Michel.
Documents revealed at the inquiry show that Hunt wrote a pointed memo to David Cameron in November 2010 in support of the bid on the same day he was given legal advice not to. He also exchanged a string of text messages with Michel while exercising quasi-judicial oversight of the media merger.Documents revealed at the inquiry show that Hunt wrote a pointed memo to David Cameron in November 2010 in support of the bid on the same day he was given legal advice not to. He also exchanged a string of text messages with Michel while exercising quasi-judicial oversight of the media merger.
We have compiled a list of questions for Hunt here.
The inquiry begins at 10am.The inquiry begins at 10am.