The statement didn't come in last night's great debate between the party leaders on television, but in a question and answer session for m, the UK student social networking site, which claims 2.8 million unique visitors.

Clegg told the site, "We did our best to prevent the Digital Economy Bill being rushed through at the last moment. It badly needed more debate and amendment, and we are extremely worried that it will now lead to completely innocent people having their internet connections cut off.

"It was far too heavily weighted in favour of the big corporations and those who are worried about too much information becoming available. It badly needs to be repealed, and the issues revisited."

The Digital Economy bill was in a vote in the House of Commons, following a debate attended by . The bill was passed through the Commons to the with a majority of 142 votes.

One of the country's largest broadband providers, TalkTalk, has said it would rather go to court than disconnect a customer's account for alleged copyright infringement. It has also pledged to never surrender a customer's details to copyright holders without a court order.