David Cameron has vowed to legislate on the “family friendly filters” currently offered on a voluntary basis by the UK’s largest Broadband operators.

During Prime Minister’s Questions today, the PM was asked whether the EU’s new network neutrality regulations, approved by the European Parliament yesterday, would prevent access providers from implementing adult content filters. The regulations forbid “blocking or throttling of online content, applications and services”.

The Prime Minister promised to legislate to make sure that filtering continued.

Like my hon. Friend, I think that it is vital that we enable parents to have that protection for their children from this material on the internet. Probably like her, I spluttered over my cornflakes when I read the Daily Mail this morning, because we have worked so hard to put in place those filters. I can reassure her on this matter, because we secured an opt-out yesterday so that we can keep our family-friendly filters to protect children. I can tell the House that we will legislate to put our agreement with internet companies on this issue into the law of the land so that our children will be protected.

It is not yet clear whether this would mean legislating to ensure that access providers are permitted to provide parental filters, or legislating to require them.