Blunkett will stop talented refugees fleeing to UK, says former adviser

A former government chief scientist warned yesterday that the "robust attitude" towards asylum-seekers shown by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, was jeopardising Britain's reputation as a safe haven for refugee academics.

Dr John Ashworth, who served as chief scientist under the prime ministership of both James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher, said refugees who had fled to Britain included at least 18 Nobel laureates and 100 Fellows of the Royal Society and British Academy. He added that refugee academics had "contributed enormously to the UK" and that Britain should welcome them "not only out of common humanity but also out of enlightened self-interest".

Speaking after being appointed president of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (Cara), Dr Ashworth said: "This country has a good record of welcoming academic refugees and we must ensure as the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill goes through Parliament that this is recognised and continued.

"The somewhat robust attitude that Mr Blunkett seems to be taking doesn't necessarily seem conducive to this."

Dr Ashworth, a biochemist, was especially critical of plans to remove some asylum-seekers "within days" of their arrival in Britain, forcing them to conduct their appeals from abroad. He said: "The system of asylum entry must ensure that all cases are dealt with speedily and efficiently with applicants remaining in this country while their cases and any appeals are considered."

The proposal to repatriate applicants swiftly was "unrealistic", he added, because many asylum applicants faced persecution if they returned to their countries of origin.

"Academics who become refugees usually do so because they have deeply offended somebody in their government. Almost by definition, if they go home they will be unable to appeal. Academics usually become refugees for intellectual reasons as authoritarian states are particularly keen on intellectual conformity. They are particularly at risk."

Cara was set up in 1933 and helped the winner of the 1962 Nobel prize for chemistry, Max Perutz, who came to Britain in 1936 from Vienna and was prevented from returning by the rise of Nazi Germany. The organisation also assisted the 1967 physics prizewinner Hans Bethe and the Austrian-born philosopher Karl Popper, as well as Denis Gabor, from Hungary, who invented the flat television tube.

¿ Mr Blunkett is determined to press ahead with plans for the children of asylum-seekers to be educated in accommodation centres rather than schools, the Home Office said yesterday. More than 30 MPs have called for the plans to be dropped.