Thousands of attempts made to access porn on computers at parliament

More than 24,000 attempts were made to access pornographic websites in the Houses of Parliament since the general election, according to official data.

The figure of 24,473 attempts represents around 160 requests per day on average from computers and other devices connected to the parliamentary network - which is used by MPS, peers and staff between June and October last year.

It comes amid a sex scandal in Westminster, which saw Theresa May sack her de facto deputy Damian Green after he made “misleading” statements about allegations that police found pornography on computers in his parliamentary office in 2008.

In his resignation letter, Mr Green continued to deny “unfounded and deeply hurtful” claims that he downloaded or viewed the material.

The data shows a spike in attempts to visit the sites in September, with 9,467 requests from both the Houses of Lords and Commons that month.

The figures also show a sharp decrease in attempts to access pornographic websites in recent years. In 2016, the parliamentary filtering system blocked 113,208 attempts, down from 213,020 the previous year.