PLANS to build a massive asylum seeker centre at Throckmorton were thro-wn into turmoil last night after Peers inflicted a defeat on the Government.

The House of Lords flatly rejected the idea of placing asylum seekers in rural locations.

They also slammed the Home Office for making the asylum-seeker accommodation centres too large and voted by 171 to 107 to send the proposals back to the House of Commons to be revised.

Now Mid-Worcestershire MP Peter Luff is hoping the defeat will force the Government to drop the idea of siting the centres in rural locations.

"This vote is a piece of really good news which further increases the Government's isolation on this issue," he said.

"There is a chance that - if the Lords hold their nerve - Ministers will realise just what a difficult position they are in and back down."

The Government wants to build four centres housing 750-asylum seekers each.

But the Lords said they should be placed in more suitable locations, nearer cities, so that asylum seekers could be integrated into communities. In addition, they should house no more than 400 people.

They said dumping confused and traumatised asylum seekers in remote areas would be a huge mistake, leading to problems for villagers and refugees.

Labour peer Lord Clinton-Davis spoke of being the grandson of an asylum seeker.

"It is not long since my grandparents were refugees. They had many problems to contend with but they never had to contend with this," he said.

The Bishops of Portsmouth, Hereford, Durham, Winchester and Salisbury were against refugee children being educated in accommodation centres and believed they should not be educated separately.

Tory home affairs spokesman Lady Anelay said more thought had to be given to the plan.

Lord Filkin, a Home Office Minister, said that although he did not want to have his hands tied by the opposition peers, he was willing to be flexible about the size of the accommodation centres.