The home secretary has pledged to tighten the rules on prisoners playing the lottery.

The move comes in response to the high profile case of convicted rapist Iorworth Hoare scooping a £7 million jackpot.

David Blunkett insisted he was already taking action on compensating victims of crime which he now wants to extend to include lottery winnings.

Amid a public outcry over Hoare's windfall the media has been inundated with calls for prisoners to be barred from playing or even winning the game.

But Blunkett claimed he was not making a "knee-jerk reaction".

"We can't stop a prisoner or their family from buying a ticket, but we can look closely at making sure they don't benefit from a single penny while in prison," he wrote in the Sun newspaper on Thursday.

"We thought of this in a consultation paper we published in the New Year. We announced we would take action so we could recover compensation if an offender won the lottery.

"I have legislation before parliament to do just that. It will also mean that every convicted criminal pays into a victims' fund. Support for victims of rape will be one its top priorities."

The home secretary added that he "will be talking to the Lottery Commission and to Cabinet colleagues to see if we can find a way to stop this happening again".

"And I want to find out if a substantial slice of winnings like these can go into the victims' fund," he said.