Powers would have to be taken by the Westminster government to approve any new chief constable in Northern Ireland in the continued absence of an executive at Stormont, British Parliament has been told.

The force said it had not yet started an investigation into the claims made in the media and raised in Parliament by SNP MP Peter Wishart

Britain’s two Houses of Parliament are squaring up to one another, as the Lords emerge as the only effective opposition to Cameron and his Conservatives, writes Shaun Connolly.