PLANS by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, to streamline the asylum system provoked two Commons revolts by Labour backbenchers last night.

In the biggest rebellion, 35 Labour MPs opposed measures to limit asylum applicants to a single appeal if their claim is turned down. In the other revolt, 28 opposed plans to stop welfare payments to failed asylum-seekers.

However, Mr Blunkett faces a further test as the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Bill moves to the Lords. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats served notice that they will fight to block the moves to limit the rights of asylum-seekers to one appeal or judicial review.

The Bill was given its third reading last night.

Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Attorney-General, said that proposals to merge the existing two-stage appeal process and prevent failed asylum-seekers from seeking judicial review were an attempt to set up a “parallel legal system”.

Under the double standard, foreigners would be judged by a different standard from British nationals, he said.

The MP compared the situation with Nazi Germany as described by Pastor Martin Niemöller, when he wrote: “First they came for the Jews . . . and then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Mr Grieve said: “It’s precisely those who are unpopular in society who are in need of protection.”

He described the Bill as setting up “an administrative system alien to our country, without any reference to our historic system and with a complete undermining of judicial independence”.

Mark Oaten, for the Liberal Democrats, branded the change a “very grave move”. He said: “By taking away this ability to go to a higher court, we could end up, in years to come, having a number of miscarriages of justice.”

Earlier the Government survived a revolt against plans to toughen welfare rules for immigrants. Under its plans, supported by the Conservatives, families who have exhausted their legal fight to win asylum will be denied welfare payments if they do not take a free flight home. Destitute parents could have their children taken into care.

Hilton Dawson, the Labour MP for Lancaster and Wyre, led the opposition, saying: “As well as being simply wrong, it’s completely counterproductive to make people and their children destitute in circumstances where they are desperate, where they are afraid, where they are utterly uncertain as to what the future might hold.”

Neil Gerrard (Lab, Walthamstow) said that existing measures denying benefits to asylum-seekers in certain cases were “immoral and fundamentally wrong” and had left “thousands of people” destitute. “We have had people sleeping rough in the streets and we have had many more surviving simply on the generosity of other people in refugee communities who themselves don’t have very much resource to offer.”

Beverley Hughes, Minister of State at the Home Office, defended the changes, insisting: “We don’t want families to be separated. We don’t want people to be destitute.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• A vicar’s wife: ‘There is no one to fight for us’
• Every little helps at the supermarket
• Ugg or Fitflop? The battle of the boots