More than three decades of underinvestment in Britain’s research and development has “throttled” the nation’s brilliance in science, MPs have warned.

The government must raise its funding from £27 billion to £48bn within six years, the report published today by the Commons business, innovation and skills select committee advises.

MPs say Britain has now slid well below international rivals and is still falling behind in research and development, with the nation slipping from fifth position in a league table of EU member states in 2010 to eighth.

Committee chairman Labour MP Adrian Bailey said: “In 1979, the UK was one of the most research-intensive economies in the world.

“Now among advanced industrial economies, it is one of the least.”