UK MPs, peers use government computers to watch porn 20,000 times per month

A freedom of information request has revealed that British MPs and peers -or to be precise, people using their computers –attempted to view pornographic websites 20,000 times a month in 2014.

UK newspaper the Express reports that over 247,000 attempts to visit the X-rated sites were made using the parliament's network last year.  Numbers peaked during times when the MPs were on holiday from the chamber.

The highest number of views took place in April that year, with some 42,000 hits on pages officially classed as pornographic.  That comes to more than 1,300 hits a day.

The month of October came a close second, with more than 30,000 views and in December last year, visits to porn sites doubled from the previous year to 20,000.

The freedom of information request did not specifically ask which websites the computers were trying to access or how long was spent on the pages.

A Commons spokesman insisted that "clear boundaries" are in place to "discourage inappropriate use" of its servers and added that the figures might be inflated because some sites feature pop-ups or automatically refresh.

Last month it was reported that a site which ranks Westminster's most beddable MPs but is not classed as porn, was accessed almost 485,000 times last year, with 53,000 attempts being successful,  and was the most popular banned website on Parliament computers.  

The second most popular banned site among UK parliamentarians was Urban Dictionary, with 155,000 attempted views, 8,180 of which were successful.