Lottery to review asylum group's activities

A National Lottery body which gave £340,000 to an anti-deportation group is to review the group's political activities.

The Community Fund's decision to grant the money to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC) angered David Blunkett, the Home Secretary.

The Home Office believes it can prove the NCADC is involved in direct political campaigning, which would make it ineligible for the hand-out. A Home Office spokeswoman said the concerns had been passed to the Community Fund which had agreed to investigate the NCADC.

The NCADC has received £383,000 from the Lottery's "good causes" pot since 1998 and was due to receive the additional funds over the next three years.

An NCADC spokeswoman, Liza Schuster, told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "Loss of the money would be catastrophic for us as an organisation ... It would have serious consequences for huge numbers of people around the country."

She acknowledged that the group operated in a "very grey area" where the dividing line between charitable work and political activism was difficult to define, but insisted: "We meet the criteria of the Community Fund and we haven't strayed from our brief at all."