Phone-hacking row probe

BRITISH MPs referred the News of the World phone-hacking row to the parliamentary sleaze watchdog yesterday for further investigation.

Authorisation for the Standards and Privileges Committee to launch a probe was nodded through the Commons without a formal vote.

The investigation by the powerful cross-party committee will further increase the pressure on David Cameron’s communications chief, Andy Coulson, who was the newspaper’s editor during the period in question.

Ex-royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for intercepting voicemail messages left for public figures in 2007. But the row reignited last week when a former reporter claimed that Coulson had been aware such eavesdropping was happening – an allegation he strongly denies.