Questions for Rebekah Brooks

1) As editor of the Sun and NoW, did you honestly not know about phone hacking, when so many of your reporters and executives say it was openly discussed in the newsroom?

2) If not, who was checking the source or veracity of the material on which Sun and NoW stories were based? Was it the legal department? If not, why not?

3) Did you ever see any transcripts of voicemail messages?

4) In November 2002 you were personally confronted by senior Scotland Yard officers with evidence that a Metropolitan Police detective was being targeted by your newspaper acting on behalf of murder suspects. What action did you take as a result of that meeting?

5) After this meeting, you knew that private investigators with criminal backgrounds were employed by your newspaper. What did you do to or stop, or at least monitor, this?

6) In 2003, you admitted paying police officers but were interrupted in your explanation by your deputy, Andy Coulson. Would you now like to explain how many police officers your newspapers paid, when you paid them, and why?

7) On 10 July, you wrote to John Whittingdale saying that the Guardian had "deliberately misled the British public" in its report saying that News International had paid Gordon Taylor and others £1m in damages and costs over phone hacking. Why did you say that and would you like to withdraw it?

8) Why, as the CEO of a major British company, did you refuse to come and give evidence to a committee of the House of Commons? Did that not show contempt for parliamentary democracy?

9) How often did you meet (formally and socially) David Cameron in the year before he became prime minister?

10) How often have you met him (formally and socially) since?

11) Did you ever at any stage privately brief David Cameron and/or Andy Coulson on material NI reporters were gathering?

12) If so, was any of this information from illegally obtained material?

13) How often have you met (formally or informally) Dick Fedorcio, the head of press at Scotland Yard? Is it correct that you have had dinners with him?

14) How was it possible for the NoW to be employing private investigators without your knowledge? Did you not have control or sight of your own editorial budget?

15) Have you seen any evidence that Sara Payne's voicemail messages were hacked by the NoW or Sun? Did you persuade Sara Payne not to complain about this?

16) Can you give your account of the conversations that preceded your decision to publish the fact that Gordon and Sarah Brown's son, Fraser, was suffering from cystic fibrosis?

Was the source a health worker or the relative of a health worker? Was the source paid for the story?

17) Did the former prime minister, then chancellor of the exchequer, welcome having his son's medical condition revealed in your newspaper?

18) Why was it necessary to close down a profitable newspaper?

19) What did you mean when you told staff that there were worse revelations to come? What are these revelations?

20) Are you remaining on the NI payroll and continuing as an employee of the company?

Questions for James Murdoch

1) Why did you pay £1m in damages and costs to Gordon Taylor and others in 2009 and seal the evidence? Would you agree that this could be described as "hush money"?

2) On whose advice did you make this decision?

3) Why did you agree the payoff to Max Clifford? Is it right that the value of this was £1m? Is it fair to describe this as "hush money"?

4) Why didn't you make a clean breast of what was discovered in the spring of 2009 instead of covering it up?

5) You have said this decision was based on "incomplete information". What further information would have made these payments right?

6) Was evidence of criminality concealed at any time from:

The News Corp board?

The NI board?

Parliament?

Police?

The PCC?

7) Are you aware of section 79 of RIPA which can be used to prosecute any director showing "consent, connivance or neglect" of offences relating to interception of communications?

8) The Guardian story of 9 July 2009 showed that the "one rotten apple" story NI had stuck to for three years was untrue – and known by then within NI to be untrue. Why did you issue a statement denying it?

9) Did you read the full email evidence upon which the May 2007 report from Harbottle & Lewis was based? Those emails, according to the advice of a former DPP, Ken MacDonald, are believed to contain evidence of possible illegal activity by staff.

10) Why, in 2007, didn't you take the action that Will Lewis is said to have taken in 2011 in relation to the evidence upon which the Harbottle & Lewis report was based?

11) Why did it take at least four years for the significance of these emails to become evident – and why did the company sit on the evidence before handing it over to the police?

12) The Metropolitan Police's former head of counter terrorism, Peter Clarke, has said of NI's behaviour: "This is a major global organisation with access to the best legal advice deliberately trying to thwart a criminal investigation. [It offered] prevarication and what we now know to be lies." Is that a fair description of how your company behaved towards the police? Until 2011?

13) If it was right for Andy Coulson, Les Hinton and Rebekah Brooks to resign, even though they denied knowledge of what happened on their watch, why is the same not true for you?

Questions for Rupert Murdoch

1) When did you become aware of the 2009 payments authorised by your son James to buy the silence of people whose voicemails had been hacked by NI employees?

2) It is understood the value of these payments was in the region of £2m. Which News Corp executives or board members knew about them?

3) Were News Corp's audit committee, board or general counsel made aware of these payments? If not, why not? Should they have been?

4) When previously unknown evidence of criminality within your company becomes known to senior executives isn't it their responsibility to inform the police and regulators rather than try to cover it up?

5) What do you now think of your son's decision to try to conceal this evidence of criminality with secret payments rather than inform the appropriate law and regulatory authorities?

6) The Guardian's story of 9 July 2009 exposed these payments and the fact that the "lone rotten apple" theory within your company was wrong. What action did you and/or the News Corp board take as a result of this story?

7) Once it became publicly known in July 2009 that more than one reporter had been involved in illegal practices did it not concern anyone within News Corp that they had been misled?

8) Did the News Corp general counsel not read the email evidence upon which the 2007 Harbottle & Lewis report commissioned by NI was based? If he did, why did he miss the material which led to the emails being handed over to the police four years later?

9) Do you agree with the evidence of the senior police officer who told MPs last week that your company had "deliberately tried to thwart" a criminal investigation… "with prevarication and ... lies"?

10) How could a company which obstructs the police and misleads Parliament and regulators be considered a fit and proper company to run a media organisation?

11) Do you agree that the actions of your company between the beginning of 2009 and the end of 2010 could be termed a cover-up?

12) You apologised in every newspaper at the weekend. But in your own Wall Street Journal last week you said you and your fellow executives had handled the crisis "very well… with just a few minor mistakes". Is that still your view? What were those mistakes?

13) Does News Corp ever use security/corporate intelligence companies in its business dealings?

14) Have you ever personally seen or been aware of material derived from the accessing of intercepted communications?

15) In your negotiations with the Wall Street Journal shareholders did you have any access or intelligence supplied by external security companies?

16) If it was right for Andy Coulson, Les Hinton and Rebekah Brooks to resign, even though they denied knowledge of what happened on their watch, why is the same not true for you?