Tories: Detain all asylum-seekers

The Conservatives raised the stakes yesterday in their dispute with Labour over asylum by calling for all new asylum-seekers to be locked up while the security services investigate whether they have terrorist links.

A tough policy unveiled by Iain Duncan Smith also included the surprise announcement that the Tories could admit more genuine asylum-seekers than Labour under a quota system to be agreed with other countries. A Tory government could allow 20,000 people seeking asylum each year. The Tories claimed only about 14,000 of the 90,000 people entering the country each year were genuine.

The Conservatives threatened to withdraw from international conventions on refugees if the party failed to agree on a new system.

The uncosted proposals were criticised by Labour ministers, who accused the Tories of using alleged links between asylum-seekers and terrorists as a "smokescreen". The Liberal Democrats said the plant to house people in secure centres until they were vetted by MI5 and MI6 would cost £275m a year.

The Tories called for full 24-hour surveillance of ports of entry, including machine-checking of all vehicles entering the UK.

Mr Duncan Smith said the party could not duck the asylum issue. "The message to the terrorist must be this: stay at home or you will be sent home," he said.

Oliver Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary, said he had "sadly" concluded that a fair and rational asylum policy within the present international system was unlikely. "We need a new regime which reconciles national interests with the interests of genuine refugees, and ensures that Britain takes its fair share of refugees whilst allowing us to operate effective controls on general immigration," he said. Mr Letwin admitted the proposals were highly controversial and would involve substantial costs.

The Tories would try to renegotiate international agreements such as the Geneva Convention, but would be prepared to withdraw unilaterally from them if this was the only way to create "a fairer and more humane system".

Beverley Hughes, Immigration minister, said: "This Tory policy is ineffective, uncosted and hypocritical. It is an opport-unistic and worthless diversion from the real tasks facing us in fighting terrorism and reforming our asylum and immigration system. We already detain specific groups of asylum-seekers and do rigorous security checks on all new arrivals."

Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, said: "We must have effective screening of everyone who enters the country. But that doesn't mean we have to put everyone in detention centres. The Conservative plans would mean locking up a lot of innocent people at huge expense."

John Wadham, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said the Tory plans were ill-conceived. "Our security and intelligence services would be swamped in work yielding nothing instead of being able to target real threats," he said.

The Refugee Council said that only three out of 80,000 asylum seekers last year were being held in connection with terrorism investigations.