Extent of online porn access in parliament revealed

Freedom of information request shows staff in House of Commons and House of Lords attempted to view porn 300,000 times in last year

Over 300,000 attempts at accessing porn were made in the Houses of Parliament in the past year, a freedom of information request (FOI) has revealed.

The data, made public after an FOI request by Huffington Post UK, show the extent 5,000 staff in the House of Commons and House of Lords attempted to access websites classed as pornographic using the Parliamentary Network.

Over the period May 2012 to July 2013, some 114,844 attempts were made in November 2012 while just 15 took place in February this year.

It's not clear who exactly has been trying to look at porn at the home of British democracy, but MPs, Lords or their research staff and aides could be among them.

A House of Commons spokesperson dismissed the figures, arguing that they don't necessarily show that staff intentionally tried to look at porn on the Parliamentary Network.

"We do not consider the data to provide an accurate representation of the number of purposeful requests made by network users," they said, adding "there's a variety of ways in which websites can be designed to act, react and interact due to the potential operation of third party software".

The parliamentary spokesperson also didn't specify what content would be deemed "pornographic" for security reasons.

The figures about porn in parliament have been made public a little over a month after Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to restrict access to porn by forcing those who wish to view it to opt in.

The plans have been labelled "absolutely ridiculous" by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, who also acts as an adviser to David Cameron.