Efforts to establish whether the internet and digital television can help to tackle social exclusion are to be announced today under a scheme run by parliamentary charity the Hansard Society.

As part of its research on how the internet could be used to improve communication between policymakers and people their decisions affect, the Hansard Society plans to use digital TV to harness the views of low income families.

Halifax's online bank is sponsoring the research which is attempting to establish whether digital TV can be used to foster debate between people on low incomes and politicians who make policies that are supposed to help them.

The new research, which will also test the internet as a tool to consult with elderly people, comes after surprise figures from the office for national statistics showed that 55% of Britons had never surfed the net. The statistics showed that low-income families and older people missed out, a potential worry for government which has cited the internet as one of its tools to enhance the country's role in the e-economy.

According to the ONS, a third of the people who access the internet have done so at work. This is expected to change once digital TV becomes more common and moves access to the internet to the living room.

Halifax Online said: "The project is designed to establish that technology is socially inclusive".

The Hansard Society said the research was the second stage in its "electronic democracy" programme, which earlier this year used the new e-technology to construct a dialogue between women victims of domestic violence and politicians.