Ministers have taken a further step towards enforcing age verification for the use of online pornography in the UK from next spring.

Under new powers contained in the Digital Economy Act, which passed through Parliament earlier this year, a regulator will be able to block porn websites that fail to show that they are denying access to under-18s, for instance by demanding credit card details.

Digital economy minister Matt Hancock has now signed an order allowing the designation of the regulator, expected to be the British Board of Film Classification, to put the new protections into effect from April next year.

The move was welcomed by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), which said watching online porn could be "deeply damaging" to young people. But the charity said that the new measures did not go far enough and there was a need for additional protection for under-18s on social media.