'No more major changes to top-up fees'

Education Secretary Charles Clarke has warned that there could be no more "major changes" to the Government's university tuition fees package.

In the Commons on Thursday, Mr Clarke unveiled a series of concessions intended to win over Labour rebels threatening to wreck the plans to introduce "top-up" fees of up to £3,000 a year from 2006.

But with many of the rebels still apparently holding firm, he has now insisted that while there could be some minor "refinements" to the legislation, there would be no significant changes.

He reiterated his warning that MPs would now have to accept or reject the package as a whole.

"I do think it is right to say that it is not a pick 'n' mix menu," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"The university system of this country needs to know where it is going in the future and that means facing up to the choices, not least on funding, which are involved in that area.

"If anybody has a belief that there is going to be another major change between now and Second Reading, or indeed thereafter, there won't be from our point of view. People have to choose. There is always scope for refinement but there is no scope for any fundamental change in the package."

Mr Clarke accepted that the Government would be damaged if it was defeated when MPs vote on the Higher Education Bill later this month.

"If it were not to be carried, then our authority would be very, very seriously damaged," he said.

He also made clear that he would not resign if the Commons threw out the Bill. "My job runs right across the whole range of education ... and I don't think that's either the right way to look at it or is the correct way of looking at the situation," he said. "I feel I have behaved with honour in the process in trying to bring forward proposals, listening to what people say, and I hope and believe Parliament will support them."

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