CLINGING to BT’s monopoly over broadband could leave Britain floundering as the rest of the world accelerates, Cotswold MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has warned.

The MP of 24 years standing joined a group of his peers calling for action on the telecom company’s “outdated” stranglehold on British communications.

Last week politicians signed into life a report by the British Infrastructure Group of MPs which revealed that although £1.7billion of taxpayers’ cash had been pumped into subsidising high-speed broadband, there was still a staggering 5.7million people across Britain unable to access the internet at the Ofcom required 10 megabits per second.

BT called the report "misleading and ill-judged".

Following the report Mr Clifton-Brown revealed the Cotswolds constituency fell into the bottom 10 per cent of Parliamentary seats for average download speeds and availability of superfast broadband.

The report, labelled “BroadBad”, calls on regulator Ofcom to take radical action over the “natural monopoly” enjoyed by BT Openreach.

The report, which details connection speeds in every part of the country, said a modern British economy reliant on broadband was being held back by BT’s lack of ambition and underinvestment.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP said: “I believe Britain should be leading the world in digital innovation. Yet instead Britain suffers from having a BT run monopoly clinging to outdated copper technology with no proper long-term plan for the future.

"Britain needs to start converting to a fully fibre network so it is not left behind the other nations who are rushing to embrace digital advancement.

“However, Britain will only achieve this by taking action to open up the sector. Given all the delays and missed deadlines, I believe that only a formal separation of BT from Openreach, combined with fresh competition and a concerted ambition to deliver, will now create the broadband service that our constituents and businesses so rightly demand.

"I am already seeing innovative new companies doing amazing things to provide tailored broadband solutions for rural communities and we need to open up the marketplace to allow these companies to flourish.”

Openreach is part of BT group but runs as a stand alone company.

A BT spokesman said they had invested £20billion in their networks over the past decade, bringing broadband to 99 per cent of the UK.

“We are now taking next generation fibre broadband into rural areas with the help of the public sector whilst the likes of Sky and TalkTalk stand on the sidelines with their hands in their pockets. We would love to flick a switch to make fibre available but it involves complex and expensive engineering and that is why our engineers are working round-the-clock to make it available as quickly as possible.”

The spokesman added that they were flattered by the report’s lead writer Grant Shapps MP’ “sudden interest in broadband”, after he claimed in February 2015 that the UK had the best network in Europe.

“Ninety per cent of UK premises can already access a fibre optic broadband connection. That will soon climb to 95 per cent and above,” the spokesman said.

“The idea that there would be more broadband investment if BT’s Openreach infrastructure division became independent is wrong-headed. As a smaller, weaker, standalone company, it would struggle to invest as much as it does currently.”