Instead of beginning its summer recess on Tuesday, the British parliament will remain open for an extra 24 hours to discuss the ongoing phone hacking scandal, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday.
"I think it would be right for parliament to meet on Wednesday so I can make a further statement to update the house," he said.
News Corporation has come under intense criticism by politicians in Britain after it emerged that some newspaper journalists employed by the group had written stories based on material hacked from phone messages, including those belonging to crime victims, celebrities and politicians.
The highest-ranking casualty of the phone-hacking scandal was Paul Stephenson, who resigned as chief of the Metropolitan police service over links with Neil Wallis, former deputy editor of News of the World. Wallis was hired to advise the Metropolitan Police in 2009.
Rebekah Brooks, as well as News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch and his son James, were summoned to attend a parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday to give an account of the events surrounding News International.
The British premier also found himself in a difficult situation in connection with the scandal because he hired former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications director. Coulson resigned from the post several months ago as the tapping scandal gained momentum, and was arrested earlier this month over the scandal.
Cameron, who continues to describe Coulson as his friend and a professional, said he saw no parallels between him and the resigned Metropolitan police chief.
"The situation in the Metropolitan Police Service is really quite different to the situation in the government, not least because the issues that the Metropolitan Police are looking at, the issues around them, have had a direct bearing on public confidence into the police inquiry into The News of the World and indeed into the police themselves," he said.
