Committee chairman Alan Beith

A committee of MPs has called on the government to rethink plans to restrict publicly funded immigration and asylum work.

A report published on Friday by the Commons constitutional affairs committee found that David Blunkett's proposals were "hurried and not obviously thought through".

The home secretary plans to set strict limits on the time and costs that could be spent on individual cases.

The MPs agree with the government's view that poor quality representation in publicly funded immigration and asylum work needs to be rooted out, with good quality suppliers encouraged.

But the report warns that, if implemented, the proposals could compromise the quality of representation available.

"While we welcome some of the changes, it is clear that the government needs to provide more detail about its new proposals and must provide further guarantees that quality will be assured," said committee chairman Alan Beith.

"Different parts of the government dealing with asylum and immigration also need to start communicating with each other.

"It looks as if the Department for Constitutional Affairs have not taken the financial implications of the Home Office announcement into account, even though they call into question the whole basis of the argument that costs will continue to increase."

The report also calls for the category of "genuine and complex" cases to be sufficiently broadly defined to meet key concerns.

And it says that provision should be made where necessary for conferences with counsel to take place before the day of the asylum hearing.

The Liberal Democrats said the report showed that the government's plans were "entirely wrong".

"There is a problem with the backlog of cases. But this should not be solved by potentially denying claimants access to legal representation," said home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten.

"By removing legal advice, more cases could end up going to appeal, adding to the backlog, and giving the government a bigger headache."