The home secretary should get tough with those who breach the rules on asylum, pressure group Migrationwatch UK says today.

In a hardline blueprint of action points the group calls for the detention of those who destroy their travel documents.

It calls on councils to check people's immigration status before giving them housing or education and proposes that those seeking to use the health service should be forced to show identity.

The right-wing group said David Blunkett should adopt its recommendations to help restore confidence on the asylum system.

"When you have a system costing £5 million a day, which abjectly fails genuine refugees while riding roughshod over the clearly expressed wishes of the host population, something has gone terribly wrong,'' said chairman Sir Andrew Green.

Whilst the plans are uncosted, Migrationwatch says the issue is one of political will.

"The present asylum system costs at least £2 billion a year and there is plenty of room for savings. It's a question of political will," he said.

"We are calling for Britain to pull out of the outdated international conventions and for the government to state how many people they want in this country.

"The prime minister said at his last monthly press conference that asylum and immigration issues today are radically different from 20 or 30 years ago and that politics simply hasn't caught up with it."