By Paula Dear BBC News Online

The government is accused of pushing "ill considered" proposals

The Home Secretary David Blunkett is giving his full backing to Tony Blair's promise to cut public spending on what he called the legal aid "gravy train".

On Thursday, the day of his speech to the Labour Party conference, Mr Blunkett told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the public would be "horrified" if it knew the way asylum appeals were over-used and "the way in which lawyers make a lot of money out of it".

But lawyers, charities and groups representing refugees and asylum seekers are united in their condemnation of the proposals.

Following Mr Blunkett's Labour party conference speech, a spokesman for Amnesty International said: "The principle that Britain will offer a safe haven to those fleeing human rights abuses is being subjected to death by a thousand cuts."

Quality of advice

According to a Law Society survey, 48% of legal practitioners would leave this area of work if the new system was introduced.

And a further 11% of lawyers said they would reduce the amount of immigration and asylum cases they took on.

Immigration and asylum legal aid costs (including judicial reviews) 2000/01: �81.3m 2001/02: �129.7m 2002/03: �174.2m Source: Department for Constitutional Affairs

The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) consulted interested groups over the proposals this summer.

Key measures include limiting initial advice consultations in asylum cases to a maximum of five hours.

All cases would be given a unique file number, so the auditor - the Legal Services Commission - could easily check how much was being spent on each case.

And a new accreditation scheme for publicly funded legal practitioners would look at the current quality of legal advice.

Unscrupulous

Lawyers groups are up in arms about the time limits being set for advising clients, who often have complex and harrowing stories to unpick.

The Immigration Law Practitioners' Association (ILPA) - which has 1,100 members - said it had "serious concerns" that the proposals would drive out the lawyers who felt they could not do the best job under those constraints.

They are ill-considered and logically flawed: they propose to deal with poor representation by making it virtually impossible to provide good representation Immigration Law Practitioners' Association

"It will become extremely hard to provide a professional, conscientious service within the time limits proposed," the ILPA said.

"The proposals reverse entirely the recent efforts...to encourage and develop high standards of advice.

"They are ill-considered and logically flawed: they propose to deal with poor representation by making it virtually impossible to provide good representation."

The ILPA said applicants would fall into the hands of poor-quality or unscrupulous legal advisers, and warned that more and more cases would land on the laps of MPs, as the only available source of free advice to many refugees and migrants.

A spokesperson for Refugee Action said the government would be better served by improving the quality of initial decisions on asylum applications, thereby reducing the number of appeals made.

Legal Services Commission Legal firms carrying out immigration work must have a contract with the Legal Services Commission The Legal Services Commission audits contractors and assesses claims for costs 617 firms are currently contracted to carry out legally aided immigration work in England and Wales Source: Department for Constitutional Affairs

She said rushing cases through the legal system would lead to poor decisions.

"Instead all this will do is create more appeals, which will be incredibly costly.

"Practitioners will be forced out of this line of work, and those who are happy to do a less effective job are more likely to stay."

And Barry Stoyle, the chief executive of the publicly funded Refugee Legal Centre, told BBC News Online the opposition to the proposals had been widespread.

He said: "We simply don't think it will be possible to do an adequate job."