Large rebellion over top-up fees halves Labour's majority

Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, suffered the latest in a series of back-bench rebellions last night as the Government saw its majority more than halved in a vote on top-up fees for students.

Many Labour MPs defied whips and refused to back the Government, reducing its majority to 74 in a debate forced by the Liberal Democrats. The scale of the rebellion will alarm Mr Blair, who could face a humiliating defeat when the Bill introducing top-up fees comes before Parliament this autumn.

Last night a large number of Labour MPs abstained in the lobbies despite efforts by Government whips to rally support and rescue Labour's reputation for Parliamentary discipline.

The Government narrowly won the vote with 267 votes to 193, after the Tories voted with the Liberal Democrats to oppose top-up fees. The vote came after a rocky fortnight for Mr Blair in which he has faced the resignation of Alan Milburn, as Secretary of State for Health, and was forced to slap down another Cabinet ally, Peter Hain, who suggested taxes should rise for the rich.

The vote also follows rebellions earlier this year over trial by jury and the military strike against Iraq.

The Liberal Democrats sought to exploit the Government's unease by forcing a debate in Parliament on tuition fees, knowing that 173 Labour MPs have signed early-day motions opposing the fees. Last night, Phil Willis, the Liberal Democrat Education spokesman, said top-up fees would deter students from poorer families going to university.

"No student with the talent to access university should be prevented from doing so on the basis of poverty or the fear of debt. Everyone in society benefits from well-trained, highly educated graduates," he said. "It is not a lot for the electorate to expect the Government to keep their manifesto commitment not to introduce top-up fees."

Labour promised in its 2001 General Election manifesto not to introduce top-up fees and said it had legislated to prevent them. But earlier this year it announced universities could introduce top-up fees of up to £3,000 a year from 2006.

Ian Gibson, Labour MP for Norwich North, who is leading the rebellion, said there was a large amount of opposition among Labour MPs.

Alan Johnson, the new Higher Education Minister, said putting off difficult choices about funding would not help students or universities in the long run. Top-up fees, he said, would provide a "direct and predictable" source of revenue.

"Universities will set the level of the fees and have more control over the additional revenue. The existing up-front fee will be abolished," he said. "Neither parents nor students will pay any fees. Graduates will pay fees."

Paul Farrelly, Labour MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, who has been a consistent critic of top-up fees and abstained in last night's vote, cited evidence from North America showing that if university fees rose poorer students stayed away.

"In Canada when medical schools in Ontario increased fees the number of students from poorer backgrounds dropped by a third," he said. "In Britain, leading universities like Oxbridge and the Russell group will ever more become the bastions of the better off."