Phone hacking: Rebekah Brooks walked away 'with £7m pay-off' - Telegraph.co.uk

The size of the payment is significantly higher than previous reports of a cash payout of £1.7m.

The newspaper's disclosures come on the eve of the annual general meeting of News Corp, NI's parent group, today in Los Angeles.

Spokesmen for News Corp and News International declined to comment last night. A spokesman for Mrs Brooks could not be reached for comment.

Reports also emerged last night that private emails, containing "embarrassing" exchanges between Mrs Brooks and David Cameron, were not handed to the Leveson Inquiry.

It was reported that the cache of documents, thought to include messages sent to Andy Coulson while he was still a Murdoch employee, was not disclosed after No 10 was advised by a government lawyer that it was not "relevant" to the inquiry into press standards.

A Downing Street spokesman insisted that "all the material the inquiry asked for was given to them".

"In common with previous Prime Ministers, the PM received government legal advice in order to co-operate fully with a judicial inquiry," he added.