News

Charities, doctors, refugee campaigners and trade unions have urged MPs to back the House of Lords' decision to reject proposals for the separate education of asylum seeker children.

The House of Commons was this week voting on the changes agreed by the Lords to the controversial Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill.

Last month, peers voted against educating the children of asylum seekers outside mainstream schools (news, page 13, 17 October).

The Lords also rejected the government's plan to create three 750-bed accommodation centres for asylum seekers on rural sites.


At the start of the Commons debate, Home Office minister Beverley Hughes announced the government had abandoned plans to have a 750-bed accommodation centre in Throckmorton because of planning difficulties.

But it would push ahead with two centres at RAF Newton and Bicester.

A joint letter from the Children's Society, the Refugee Council, the Refugee Children's Consortium, the British Medical Association and several trade unions said segregated education had "no place in modern-day Britain".