High speed internet will not be automatically delivered to countryside homes after ministers claimed some people living in rural areas do not "want to be connected".

The pledge to provide high speed broadband to every home in the UK has been abandoned by the government in an attempt to save money.

Instead fast broadband will only be provided in rural areas on request because, according to a Whitehall document, “it is unlikely that everyone will want to be connected”.

Campaigners and MPs accused the Government of giving up on providing people in the countryside with a fast internet connection.

Many of those affected live in parts of England which otherwise have a good a connection such as Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Dorset and Kent.