Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is to call on internet service providers to offer greater security to parents. In a speech at the Royal Television society tonight, Hunt will announce that the government will be looking at protection of children from harmful online content. The government, Hunt will say, would like to see parents have an “active choice”, with ISPs offering users a filtering option to households signing up to accounts.

Ofcom research suggests that just over 40 per cent of households with children currently use filtering software.