Home Secretary Theresa May has said that she is "sincerely sorry" that Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme ahead of a statement to parliament later today, May said that as far as she was aware Sir Paul's decision had been his own, and he had not been pressured to leave by the Home Office or Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
While praising Stephenson's "excellent work", May said that Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to hire ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson was not equivalent to Stephenson's hiring of Neil Wallis, a former-NOTW exec:
"There is a very real difference between the Government and the Metropolitan Police. The police are in the position of investigating alleged allegations of wrong doing by the News of the World and by individuals within the News of the World and of course I think it is important that there is a line between the investigating and the investigated."
May would not comment on speculation that Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, would take over as Met commissioner, but said that she expected deputy commissioner of the Met Tim Godwin to step in in the interim before a replacement was chosen.
Also speaking to Today, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that the Met needed to give "more answers" on the hacking scandal, and said it was "worrying" that Sir Paul had indicated that he couldn't talk about a suspect in the phone hacking case with the home secretary because of Cameron's relationship with Andy Coulson.
"There are clearly questions about Andy Coulson's role in all of this and the PM's judgement in appointing him."
"If the Met commissioner himself thought that relationship prevented him from telling the Home Secretary what was happening... that it seems to me puts the Met commissioner in an extremely difficult situation."