Gaming crush ... Candy Crush saga developer King.com say the game is played more than a billion times per day. Source: Supplied

The Sun published embarrassing pictures of Tory MP Nigel Mills enjoying online hit Candy Crush Saga during a Work and Pensions Committee evidence session.

A source said they had seen the Amber Valley MP playing the game over a period of two and a half hours.

Investigation ... London’s House of Commons (seen in the background) has strict parliamentary rules about photography. Picture: AP Photo/Tim Hales Source: AP

Mr Mills told the newspaper: “It was a long meeting on pension reforms, which is an important issue that I take very seriously. “There was a bit of the meeting that I wasn’t focusing on and I probably had a game or two.

“I shouldn’t do it but if you check the meeting I would say I was fully engaged in asking questions that I thought were particularly important in how we get the pensions issue right. I shall try not to do it in the future.”

A Commons spokesman said the photography broke strict parliamentary rules.

Taking such unauthorised images can lead to individuals being barred from the estate.

“This was a breach of the filming rules for House of Commons Committee Rooms, and will be investigated by the Serjeant at Arms,” a spokesman said.

Preparations ... British Chancellor George Osborne leaves the Treasury for the House of Commons to deliver the Autumn statement. Picture: AP Photo/Alastair Grant Source: AP

The committee met last Monday and was discussing pensions and the insurance industry ahead of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement announcement.

Candy Crush Saga is a free-to-download mobile game but users pay extra for more moves to improve their score.

Having started out on social network Facebook, it moved on to mobile devices in 2012, and is now played more than a billion times a day, according to developer King.com.