Nine million adults in Britain have never used the internet

More than nine million British adults have never used the internet despite Government efforts to encourage elderly people to go online, official figures have shown.

While a million extra “silver surfers” have logged on in the last year, concerns have been raised that those who are still not using the internet are being excluded from key discounts and services.

More than 38 million British adults are now online, with 30 million logging on every day, the figures showed.



But the elderly, the widowed and people on lower incomes are least likely ever to have connected to the internet, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Adults who do not use the internet miss out on the opportunity to save money on a range of products and services, such as cars, holidays and insurance, through price comparison websites.

The new figures for 2010 showed that 31 million people have bought goods or services on the internet in the past 12 months.