HOME Secretary David Blunkett was today being urged to allow children staying at the proposed Throckmorton asylum seeker centre to attend local schools.

More than 30 left-wing MPs want Mr Blunkett to scrap plans to educate the youngsters at a special unit inside the centre.

The MPs argue the youngsters will suffer if they are "segregated" from other children and have tabled an amendment to the Government's flagship Asylum and Immigration Bill.

The amendment states that children should be kept out of accommodation centres altogether - unless there is a place available for them at a local school.

The move has the backing of Save the Children and will be voted upon by MPs tonight or tomorrow.

"Education should be universally available and prohibiting a particular group of children from attending mainstream school is a dangerous and unprecedented attack on that principle," said Mike Aaronson, the charity's director general.

But Mid Worcestershire MP Peter Luff said the amendment was distracting attention from the core issue that large accommodation centres are unsuitable "full stop".

"I am not going to start discussing the detail of these centres because they are wrong in principle," he added.

"The battle we need to fight is to have smaller centres in urban areas."

Mr Blunkett's plans to educate children inside the 750-bed accommodation centre destined for RAF Throckmorton have caused widespread controversy.

Mr Blunkett said he did not wish to see asylum-seeker children "swamping" local schools while their applications, along with those of their families, are considered. This process is expected to take six months.

The Home Secretary is expected to resist the amendment, although there has been speculation he is considering making a small concession to the backbench MPs.

This would allow asylum-seeker children to enter local schools once the six-month guideline for assessing claims has been passed.