RURAL homes will get superfast broadband, the digital economy minister has promised.

Ed Vaizey has made a commitment to better the current progress which will see superfast broadband provided to 95 per cent of the country by 2017.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he said he shared the "frustrations" of people with slow internet connections.

He said: "There are rural parts of the country that remain stubbornly hard to reach and I share the frustrations of those who live there.

"But we're on track to get to 95 per cent of them by 2017, and we're determined that those in the final 5 per cent are not left behind."

Mr Vaizey said hundreds of millions of pounds would be reinvested to reach remote communities more quickly as part of the Government's contract with BT.

He said the Universal Service Obligation announced by David Cameron last year would give everyone the right to request a connection with a minimum of 10mbps and the minimum speed would remain under review to make sure it "keeps up with consumer needs".

The pledge comes after Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger slammed a Government proposal to scrap the automatic roll-out of high-speed broadband to rural areas.

Mr Liddell-Grainger criticised a decision by the government which will see broadband rolled out through its Universal Service Obligation (USO) ‘on request’.

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The decision came amid claims rural communities may not want the upgrade, despite prime minister David Cameron calling access to high-speed broadband ‘a basic human right’.

The MP offered to pay for Mr Vaizey to visit the area and meet residents struggling with slow internet connections.

“The minute the true costs became apparent suddenly the basic human right became too expensive to deliver,” he added.

In the consultation document on the USO, the government said: “Given the high costs of providing broadband access to premises in remote areas it is right that this is done on request, rather than rolling it out and waiting to see if people in those areas want to be connected.

“We know from the various interventions that the government has made to date that it is unlikely that everyone will want to be connected, even if that option is made available to them, and so we do not believe that an additional broadband rollout programme at this time is proportionate or would represent value for money.”

But Mr Liddell-Grainger said the decision “betrayed” his constituents.

“The minute the true costs became apparent suddenly the basic human right became too expensive to deliver," he said.

“As to claiming that the plans are being shelved because some people in the countryside don’t want a connection that is the lamest, flimsiest and least credible excuse for betrayal I have ever heard from a Government department. 

“Clearly, however, such a statement wouldn’t have been plucked out of the air: it must have some basis in fact. 

“So I should be very much obliged if any minister would travel down to Exmoor and take me to see the people who don’t want to be connected – because so far I haven’t met any.

“So important is this that I shall be happy to pay the ministerial train fare out of my own pocket.”

He added: “What annoys me most is that the Government has gone into overdrive to create an online society: everything from income tax to benefits to Single Farm Payments is now supposed to be handled online.

"But dozens and dozens of my constituents are now going to be denied this convenience and instead permanently stuck in the communications steam age.

“What essentially has happened is that the telecommunications industry has now run up against reality in the shape of the rural premium – the extra cost that has always applied to delivering goods and services to the countryside.

“Essentially it means there’s no profit for them in supplying a service to rural areas: in fact it will almost certainly lose them money.

“But given the huge amounts of easy takings the industry rakes in from urban areas there is plenty of spare money sloshing around to underwrite the rural service and see to it that people in the countryside are offered as good a deal and the same benefits as those in towns and cities.”