The Leveson inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press. This followed the News International phone hacking scandal. The Leveson report was published in November 2012, this reviewed the culture and ethics and made recommendations for a new body to replace the existing Press Complaints Commission.

The final terms of reference of the inquiry was announced in July 2011, where a panel of 6 people were announced. This included:

Sir David Bell (former chairman of Financial Times), Shami Chakrabarti (director of Liberty), Lord Currie (former Ofcom director), Elinor Goodman (former political editor of Channel 4 News), George Jones (former political editor of the Daily Telegraph and also Sir Paul Scott-Lee QPM who was former Chief Constable of West Midlands Police.

According to a response published in 2013, the total cost of the Leveson inquiry was £5.4 million.