Children: Abuse

Margaret Moran
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to require web hosting companies to review their commitments to ensure abusive images of children are removed from the internet; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Coaker
The Government remain committed to ensuring that websites with child abuse content cannot be accessed from within the UK through any Internet Service Provider (ISP).

We continue to work very closely with the ISP industry as they put in place blocking mechanisms to restrict access to those websites identified by the Internet Watch Foundation, as well as to exploring other options to prevent access to illegal images of child abuse.

The Government have set a target for every ISP to support the blocking mechanism by the end of 2007.