Home Secretary Theresa May is expected to announce a broad independent inquiry into how public institutions handled allegations of child abuse. Mrs May will give details of the probe as she makes a statement to MPs this afternoon.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Tebbit has said he believes there "may well" have been a political cover-up over child abuse in the 1980s because "It was the thing that people did at that time."
Lord Tebbit told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show that people's instincts during that era were to protect "the system".
Asked if he thought there had been a "big political cover-up" at the time, he said: "I think there may well have been. But it was almost unconscious. It was the thing that people did at that time."
"At that time I think most people would have thought that the establishment, the system, was to be protected and if a few things had gone wrong here and there that it was more important to protect the system than to delve too far into it," he said.
"That view, I think, was wrong then and it is spectacularly shown to be wrong because the abuses have grown," he added.
The MP who raised the claims that a paedophile ring operated in Westminster during the 1980s said new allegations have now come to light.
Lord Brittan has defended his handling of a dossier alleging paedophile activity in Westminster when he was home secretary in the 1980s.
A 1980s dossier claiming paedophile activity at Westminster may have mysteriously gone missing but the questions still remain.