Three former News International executives accused of lying to parliament have been referred by MPs to a Commons committee that has the power to recommend punishment.
Ex-News of the World editor Colin Myler, the paper's former legal manager Tom Crone and one-time News International chairman Les Hinton were accused of misleading the culture, media and sport committee during its investigation into phone hacking.
All three deny giving misleading testimony and further action will now be decided upon by the standards and privileges committee after MPs passed a Commons motion on Tuesday afternoon.
Therese Coffey, a Conservative member of the culture committee said: "We are the parliament of the people, we should not be lied to."
Labour MP Chris Bryant said parliament should consider fining or even imprisoning the men.
"I simply think we were hoodwinked, indeed for a long period politicians were so nervous and frightened of what the press would say about us we effectively put the hoodwinks on ourselves," he said.
"It is time we asserted the freedom of parliament, the rights of parliament … if parliament is lied to we can not do our job on behalf of our constituents."
Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, the chair of the culture committee, John Whittingdale said: "The conclusions we've reached have serious repercussions. I'm not sure what they are but these are serious matters.
The vote to refer the three men to the standards committee was supported by both the government and Labour front benches.
Parliament hasn't fined anybody since 1666.
The last non-member of Parliament called to apologize before Parliament was in 1957.
And the last time Parliament imprisoned a non-member of Parliament was in 1880.
But Myler, Crone and Hinton face all three of those possibilities.
In addition, it is believed that Hinton may eventually face criminal charges related to the News Corporation hacking scandal as well.
I wonder, can Colin Myler run the New York Daily News from a British prison cell?
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