The world’s most powerful spy chiefs will be drafted in to hunt down paedophile gangs, under plans drawn up by Sajid Javid. The home secretary will chair a meeting of the Five Eyes intelligence partnership next year and has made tackling child sexual exploitation the top item on the agenda, ahead of fighting terrorism and Isis.

The Five Eyes combines British spies with their counterparts from America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and is regarded as the cream of the West’s intelligence agencies.

Javid is also acting as a link between GCHQ, the government’s listening agency in Cheltenham, and the big internet companies — such as Google, Facebook and WhatsApp — as he turns the screws on them to crack down on child sex abuse.