Dr Julian Lewis: So far as the breaches of the criminal law are concerned, will my hon. Friend [John Whittingdale] confirm that, if a statutorily based supervisory body were to discover that the criminal law had been broken – through phone hacking, for example – that would become a matter for the police anyway as soon as it was discovered and that, terrible though the suffering of the Dowlers was, their case is, in a sense, really rather irrelevant to the supervisory body that we ought to have?

[Mr John Whittingdale: I am not sure that I would say their case is irrelevant, because it plainly provided evidence of the way in which the press seemed to feel that they was above the law, and that is a matter for a body overseeing ethics and standards. My hon. Friend is right, however, to say that that matter should have been dealt with by the police, and we still need answers as to why it was not.]