Major doubts have emerged over Government plans to issue police with 10,000 new Taser stun guns.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had earlier announced plans to train front-line officers across England and Wales in all 43 forces with the firearm.

But soon after, the country's largest force announced it will not be taking up funding for the 50,000-volt weapons because they could "damage public confidence".

Human rights group Amnesty International also came out and said that Tasers were "potentially lethal" and had been linked to hundreds of deaths in the US and Canada.

And it emerged a senior cabinet minister expressed reservations about extending the use of Tasers when working at the Home Office.

Communities and Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears said she would not want to see the guns issued to every officer and rejected the idea of their use as an "everyday weapon" when she worked at the Home Office.

"(The) Taser is quite a dangerous weapon. It is a less lethal option other than firearms, but it is not an everyday weapon used in everyday circumstances," she told Police Review in 2005.

"My feeling at the moment is that it is substantially different from handcuffs and a truncheon, and I would not want to see everyone on the streets having that kind of weapon."

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