PAYDAY loans are a form of "grooming" and adverts for them should be banned from pre-watershed television, Floella Benjamin has said.

The former Play School television presenter criticised the loans as peers tried to persuade the Government help stop children pestering their parents to get into debt.

Baroness Benjamin, a Liberal Democrat, said: "Payday loans is a form of grooming, so to protect our children should there not be a clause in the Advertising Standards Authority's code which refers to the scheduling of adverts that encourage potentially harmful lifestyle choice, such as payday loans?"

Labour peer Lord Mitchell said he was planning to introduce a private member's bill to ban such advertising until after the watershed.

Treasury spokesman Lord Newby told peers: "The Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice is considering payday loan advertising on children's TV and potential implications for ASA regulation."