Labour to force Commons vote over Jeremy Hunt's handling of BSkyB bid Labour is to force a vote in the Commons over the conduct of the beleaguered culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt , after a defiant David Cameron insisted he had handled News Corporation's bid for BSkyB fairly. The prime minister backed Hunt despite a day of gruelling evidence at the Leveson inquiry in which it was disclosed that the culture secretary had repeatedly contacted James Murdoch about the bid. Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman, said the party would call a vote in the House of Commons on whether Hunt's actions should be referred to the independent investigator on the ministerial code. Within minutes of Hunt finishing six hours of evidence, No 10 announced that Cameron would not be referring Hunt's handling of the BSkyB bid to his independent adviser on the ministerial code, a decision branded as disgraceful by Harman. She told BBC Breakfast on Friday morning that Hunt had clearly breached the rules, insisting there was no evidence to the contrary. "He has broken the ministerial code and it obviously, as far as David Cameron is concerned, is perfectly acceptable for his secretary of state to break the rules but actually the ministerial code is important," she said. It is not acceptable to us that these rules should have been broken and we are going to call a vote on it in the House of Commons. She added: "The ministerial code is what is supposed to govern the way secretaries of state behave, and when David Cameron came into power he said it was very important indeed. He was going to have higher standards in public office and he upgraded the code. Now he has just torn it up. The Liberal Democrats said it was "a matter for the prime minister alone to decide how to handle issues of discipline concerning Conservative ministers." The Leveson inquiry heard on Thursday that on 21 December 2010, hours before taking responsibility for the takeover, Hunt texted the News International chairman, James Murdoch, to congratulate him that the European commission did not object on competition grounds. Hunt texted: "Great and congrats on Brussels, just Ofcom to go!" Even after receiving authority over the bid process, Hunt remained in contact with Murdoch via text, receiving one message on 3 March, just after the culture secretary had publicly announced he was "minded" to approve the bid, that said: "Big few days. Well played. Two minutes later, Hunt replied: "Thanks think we got right solution!" Hunt conceded he had seen a successful takeover as vital to the future of British media, but claimed he had set aside this belief in deciding whether to grant the £8bn takeover. It is likely Hunt is safe in office at least until a late summer reshuffle, but his authority in the media industry is severely damaged. Among many revelations, it was disclosed he considered resigning - admitting he was shocked when he learnt of the volume of the communications between News Corp and his special adviser Adam Smith. Hunt said the language sometimes used by his adviser in a series of text messages had been inappropriate. But he suggested that News Corp besieged Smith and claimed that the "barrage ... ended up pushing him into certain situations and language that wasn't appropriate." Hunt told the inquiry he had accepted Smith's resignation with an incredibly heavy heart, and for two days personally thought he had no reason to quit. On hearing leaked remarks by business secretary Vince Cable disparaging News International, Hunt texted George Osborne, the chancellor, saying: "seriously worried we are going to screw this up." He also emailed his concerns to Andy Coulson, the No 10 director of communications. Four hours later, he was appointed by Cameron as the impartial judge of the takeover, along with other media issues transferred from Cable's department. Commenting on the decision, Osborne texted the culture secretary: "Hope you like the solution!" In what was a taxing opening 90 minutes of the hearing, Hunt also confirmed that he circumvented official advice that he should not meet James Murdoch to discuss the bid by instead talking to him on a mobile phone to "hear out his concerns" and "basically hear what he had to say about what was on his mind at that time." He admitted he had been wrong to attempt to set up a meeting between himself, the prime minister, Nick Clegg and Cable to discuss the wider implications of the News Corp bid. He said he was frustrated following complaints from News Corp about Cable's handling of the issue, and wrote to Cameron on 12 December seeking a meeting. Hunt conceded: "I now realise that it would not have been possible for Vince Cable to attend such a meeting and he would have been advised not to attend such a meeting." Downing Street said in a statement: "As the permanent secretary of the department [of culture, Jonathan Stephens] made clear, Jeremy Hunt set up a process which left him with a 'vanishingly small' chance to 'manipulate' the bid for 'political or other ends'. There are some lessons to be learned from this process and that's why the cabinet secretary has already written to all departments regarding the way quasi-judicial decisions are taken. The statement added that the prime minister would not be referring Hunt to Sir Alex Allan, the independent adviser on the ministerial code. Allan has no powers of his own to initiate an investigation. Hunt asserted at Leveson that at the time he did not have a full understanding of what a quasi-judicial decision involved. He was also forced to disclose that, unusually, he communicates exclusively via private email. He said that in future he would not meet media executives without officials being present taking notes. Hunt conceded he had been more than sympathetic to the BSkyB bid as culture secretary, saying: "I didn't think there was a major plurality issue with this acquisition." Criticising the way Cable was handling the bid, he told Lord Justice Leveson: "We're a party that believes in the free market, in supporting enterprising companies, in government bureaucracy not getting in the way of companies that want to expand and backing people who take risks, and I think that I felt that the approach the government was taking felt inconsistent with that." He said he saw "this bid and the potential of the bid as an opportunity to help modernise the industry so that it could carry on playing [a] free and vibrant role." Hunt argued that once he was given quasi-judicial responsibility for the bid he was able not to wipe his mind clear of his previous views, but he was able to set them aside. He had repeatedly taken decisions in relation to the bid that infuriated the Murdoch empire, including referring the undertakings on BSkyB editorial independence offered by News Corp to Ofcom, the media regulator.