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There were a staggering 250,000 attempts to view porn sites in Parliament last year, it's been revealed.

The torrent of requests rolled in through servers used by MPs and peers, and were promptly blocked by Westminster's strict security filter.

At worst there was a flurry of 1,300 requests a day for X-rated sites - but Commons officials insist the tally could be misleading.

The figures have been revealed after a Freedom of Information request by Express.co.uk .

The 247,000-request tally for last year was a slight drop on the 350,000 notched up in 2013.

(Image: PA)

But some months showed a surge in traffic - especially when MPs and peers were taking their breaks from debating in the chamber.

There were 42,000 visits in April last year, much of which was taken up by the Commons' two and a half week Easter holiday.

And there 20,000 visits in December, half of which was devoted to the Christmas break.

It comes after banned 'hot or not' site SexyMP was outed as the most popular restricted website in Parliament.

However, Commons chiefs always sound a note of caution over such shock figures.

(Image: PA)

Previously a spokesman said: "We do not consider the data to provide an accurate representation of the number of purposeful requests made by network users."

It's due to 'the variety of ways in which websites can be designed to act, react and interact and due to the potential operation of third party software'.

In other words, anti-porn software could count pop-ups as an attempt to view smut - or log several page views for one rogue site.

And at least it's not as bad as Brazil - where MPs were caught watching porn on a mobile phone in the debating chamber.