A key government inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal will be published today, criticising James Murdoch for failing to ask questions that could have uncovered earlier the malpractice at the News of the World.

 

But a source told the Guardian that the former News International chief will not be accused of misleading parliament because of conflicting evidence given to the inquiry.

 

The cross-party Culture, Media and Sport select committee is expected to come down harder on Murdoch's predecessor Les Hinton, who headed the company at the time when the bulk of alleged phone-hacking was believed to have happened. Hinton told the committee in 2009 that phone hacking at the News of the World was not rife and stood by this statement in October last year, saying it was "valid". He is expected to be accused of misleading parliament. 

 

The former editor of the Sunday tabloid, Colin Myler, and the newspaper's chief lawyer Tom Crone, are also expected to come under fire for failing to come clean about what really happened.

 

The report comes a day after David Cameron was called by the Speaker, John Bercow, to answer questions in the Commons on why he was not launching an inquiry into the allegations that the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt breached the ministerial code in his handling of News Corporation's BSkyB bid. Cameron insisted that the investigation should be left to the Leveson Inquiry.