Keep refreshing for live updates from 11.30am as the Home Affairs Committee questions the Met on phone hacking.
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The committee has now finished questioning Sue Akers. That concludes today's evidence to the Home Affairs Committee on phone hacking.
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Akers says she can "guarantee" a full inquiry by Operation Weeting and that she hopes to not have to return in five year's time to explain its failure.
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Akers says she is "absolutely" prepared to look beyond News International if she has the evidence of more widespread phone hacking.
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Akers says there were "mistakes made" with the incomplete database of 11,000 documents relating to phone hacking from 2005-6. "We have completely gone through the material again" and put it on a new database.
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"A number of journalists and campaigners have kept this on the agenda," says Akers. She asks any campaigners who have "any evidence" to support her investigation to come forward, saying "now is the time".
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Akers says that dealings with News International at the start of her inquiries was "difficult" but relationships have since been "much better" and that her team now deals daily with senior NI executives, Will Lewis and Simon Greenberger.
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Akers says the police inquiry "has got going" as evidenced by the eight arrests already. Says there is a "limited amount of work" a public inquiry could do while Operation Weeting is going ahead, particularly in relation to questioning witnesses.
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Akers: "Forty-five people on Operation Weeting is not going to derail us" from other concerns.
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Akers says in the last week her team has "now had something in the region of 500 people having written to us" to ask if they were potential phone hacking victims.
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Akers comments on the material gathered in the '05-'06 investigation and the new process of notifying potential victims. "We thought very long and hard about this... but regardless of whether the criminal law said they were or weren't [victims]... intuitively it felt right to treat them in the same way" if it appeared their privacy had been breached.
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Time now for the final witness, Deputy Commissioner of the Met Sue Akers, head of the ongoing police investigation into phone hacking, Operation Weeting.
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Mr Hayman gives a very heated response: "I'm not letting you get away with that" after a question on whether he had received any money from News International for information while a police officer. He repeats an emphatic "No."
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Hayman "It is absolutely appaling that victims have crime have gone through that terrible experience... that is a matter of absolute regret... I do apologise."
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Lib Dem Committee Member Julian Huppert asks how the Committee can be sure the motives of the Met were innocent.
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Hayman: "At that time [the investigation] was proportionate within the parameters set"
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Hayman says "of course" he owes Lord Prescott an apology after previously accusing the former Deputy PM of "ranting" about phone hacking.
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Labour's Stephen McCabe asks Hayman "Why did you think further investigations into this affair would be a waste of public money?". Hayman responds that we now have the benefit of hindsight and says "we must have a judge-led public inquiry" into this "horror story".
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Hayman says The Times was "a different part of the stable" to News of the World.
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Hayman, "I am sure there was an occasion where [NI] were being investigated" where he had dinner with News International staff. Committee Michael Ellis asks if that "was an appropriate course of action to have taken" and Keith Vaz says the committee is "astonished". Hayman says "we never, ever had a conversation" that compromised the investigation.
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"Don't beat me up for being upfront and honest with you", Hayman says. He adds that he saw journalism as a "second career" after retirement, but that there is categorically nothing untoward about him taking up a new role with NI.
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Committee member Mark Reckless makes the point that both Hayman and former DPP Ken MacDonald are now working for News International and argues that it "looks bad"
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Hayman says revelations his phone were hacked were news to him and that all hackers would find is the "shopping list and golf tee-off times"
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Hayman says NI hadn't shown "any obstruction at all" to his knowledge when he took up his post with The Times.
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Keith Vaz says to Hayman "given what's happened you shouldn't be involved with News International"
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Andy Hayman, former assistant commissioner of the Met defends his decision to write a column for News International's The Times after leaving the Met. "I knew no one at the times at an editorial level.... there was no love lost there... I didn't know them from Adam" "Even if I had that motive, I had no ability" to change the course of the investigation.
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Clarke concedes that the material turned out to have been significant. With that, Peter Clarke's evidence is now over, and Andy Hayman, former assistant commissioner of the Met is now answering questions.
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Chairman Keith Vaz says the Committee remains "puzzled" as to why the 11,000 documents available to the Met were not properly analysed.
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Clarke: "I took the view it would be completely unrealistic" to ask the Met to devote 50 to 60 officers to further investigating phone hacking given the unlikelihood at the time of securing further convictions.
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Clarke: "the analysis of the 11,000 pages was not comprehensive"
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Labour's Stephen McCabe says "people don't understand" how the wider practice of hacking "escaped attention" by the Met.
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Clarke denies that Met was scared of confronting News International because ot its global reach: "hostility and obstruction would make me more determined rather than less"
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Clarke: "in 2006... my focus was on terrorist issues"
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Committee member Julian Huppert says the boundaries of the initial investigation were "too narrow"
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Clarke says it is "pure speculation" as to how valuable an earlier sift through the evidence on potential victims would have been. He argues that he made a decision based on the "competing priorities" of a Met with limited resources.
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Clarke: "I'm not sure that skimming 11,000 pages" was feasible.
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Clarke: "I was not only suspicious, I was certain" that NI had "something to hide". He says the Met were "frustrated" at finding themselves in a "legal impasse". Clarke argues that although the evidence available could have pushed the case forward, the Met was dealing with other "life threatening" cases.
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Clarke: "I can't say whether all the material was read". Committee Chair Keith Vaz says it is surely a "no brainer" that all the evidence would have been looked at.
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Clarke: "I have to disagree that the web of spying and corruption has continued untouched... as far as I'm aware, by and large after 2006... voicemail hacking no longer continued"
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Clarke: "If we'd tried to mount an investigation into every single victim... it would have taken years... we did not know the full scope of how many people were being victimised."
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Clarke says that he was not party to any hospitality or private dinners given by News International.
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Clarke argues that the "scarce resources" of the Met were focused on other matters at the time of the initial phone hacking inquiry particularly when there seemed "little chance" of additional convictions. He accuses News International of "lies".
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Clarke says the strategy for informing victims of phone hacking "did not work as intended". Victims "did not receive the support they needed," he concedes.
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Clarke reads a prepared statement recounting the course of events. "A much wider investigation would inevitably take much longer to complete... To my mind, this would be unacceptable... We were assured by solicitors that News Group newspapers wished to assisted our investigation... in reality very little evidence was produced"
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Clarke: "If there had been any meaningful cooperation [from News International]... we would not be here today."
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Clarke "I think I share the shock of everybody at some of the depths to which the media has sunk"
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Peter Clarke, former deputy assistant commissioner of the Met Police is now answering questions.
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Chairman Keith Vaz says it is the view of the Committee that Yates' evidence has been "unconvincing" and that he should expect to be recalled.
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Yates says there is "collective responsibility" between the Met and the Crown Prosecution Service for failings but that "operational decisions are for the police alone". He says his "conscience is clear... I have expressed regrets"
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Yates says he believes he can continue in his position. "The right thing in this case was to hold my hands up around the regret I feel... that does not in my view make it a resignation matter."
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Yates: "I think the [public] should be feeling extremely reassured" by the new Met investigation taking place "under a different command structure".
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Yates emphatically denies that he has received payments from journalists for information. "I have never, ever, ever received any payment of that sort", he says, but concedes that similar transactions must have taken place in the Met.
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Yates says he has not considered his position "for what News International has done and [his] very small part in it"
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John Yates "Do I wish we could turn the clock back? Yes, I do."
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Yates on why the material available to the Met about potential hacking victims wasn't combed through earlier: "I don't think you actually expect me with the span of command I have... to utilise my time examining every bit of paper in a bin bag"
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Labour's Stephen McCabe remarks to Yates "You just don't sound the dogged, determined sleuth we would expect". Laughter among the Committee.
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Yates says more journalists from the News of the World "ought to have been" interviewed by the Met.
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Yates argues that the Met expanded the scope of its inquiries as potential new evidence on hacking came in: "In 2009... I made it very clear exactly what approach I took... It was around the range and scope of the original investigation...In 2010 it was potentially new information so we put a new team on it with a new investigating officer"
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Yates gives a simple 'No' on whether he knew former PM Gordon Brown's phone may have been hacked. He says the list alleged victims presented by the Committee is new to him and says Sue Akers will answer questions on current state of Operation Weeting.f inquiry.
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Labour's Bridget Phillipson asks Yates to "explain the reasons for the difference" between the "thorough" Cash for Honours investigation and the apparently botched phone hacking inquiry. Yates argues that they are completely different investigations with different lines of inquiry.
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Yates defends his Telegraph interview this weekend as "the most sensible outlet".
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Lorraine Fullbrook says she is "frankly astounded at the incompetence" of the Met.
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Yates: "I am 99% sure my phone was hacked in 2005/6"
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John Yates "categorically states it is not the case" that he had a personal relationship with anyone from News International, as alleged in the New York Times this morning.
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Yates: "I have not been in contact [with senior NI executives]... during a live investigation"
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Yates: "As soon as new evidence came in January 2011 I handed it over."
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Yates reiterates that every answer he has given to the Committee has been "in good faith". Asked if he wishes to put an apology to the Committee on record he says, "If I have unwittingly misled this Committee... then that is a matter of regret."
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Dr Huppert asks if senior members of the Met have been threated by News International with potential revelations about their private lives. Yates strongly denies that this has been the case.
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Michael Ellis: "You had thousands of pages of documents. Why did you not look at them?"
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Yates: "There is nothing we could have done" to get further material from News International.
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Conservative Michael Ellis to Yates: "You have responsibility, do you not, for not pursuing this properly?"
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Yates: "In hindsight, had I known what I should have known, it's a poor decision" not to pursue this further.
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Yates: "I expressed regret that we didn't do enough to help those who were potentially affected by phonehacking". Yates says he does not, however, take responsibility for the failures of News International.
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John Yates, Acting Deputy Commissioner of the Met makes an opening statement: "Had I known in July 2009 what I now know I would have made different decisions... I can assure you all I have never lied [to the committee]"
"It is a matter of great concern that for whatever reason the NOTW failed to cooperate... with the relevant police inquiries... they have only recently provided evidence that would have had a significant impact"
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The Committee's phone hacking inquiry begins in earnest. John Yates, Acting Deputy Commissioner is called.
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Lord Blair on why the initial phone hacking inquiry didn't take precedence: "We are now dealing with the perfect glare of hindsight... you have to see this in the context of how you do a pretty extraordinary job in difficult circumstances"
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Lorraine Fullbrook asks Lord Blair, Former Met Commissioner how many police officers took money from NI for information on his watch. Lord Blair: "The indication is that it was less than five... I have a very long track record in combating corruption in the Police Service... I do not know of any payments that were made"
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Lord Blair: "I did not know and would not have expected to know details of that inquiry"
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Lord Blair, Commissioner of the Met at the time of the first inquiry says he had no concerns at the time about its conduct: "This was a tiny fragmentary event.... in the aftermath of [7th July] 2005."
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Before today's questioning begins, here is the written reply Acting Deputy Commissioner John Yates gave yesterday to Committee Chairman Keith Vaz, in which he said:
"...in relation to events that took place in 2009, I was provided with some considerable reassurance, (and at a number of levels), that led me to a view that this case neither needed to be re-opened or reviewed."
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Appearing before the Committee at 11.30am today will be John Yates, Acting Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
He will be followed at noon by Peter Clarke, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met.
At 12.20pm former Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman will speak, followed by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers at 12.40 pm.
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