Students could be charged up to �3,000 a year for tuition

As many as 130 Labour MPs have voiced concern about plans to let universities charge fees of up to �3,000 a year.

Commons Leader Peter Hain said the proposals could be "tweaked" but the basic principles were not up for renegotiation.

MPs say raising the salary level at which graduates start to repay the fees would not quell their fears.

Earnings threshold

Until now, the government has said repayment will start when earnings reach �15,000. Now there are reports that the threshold will be raised to �20,000.

That move could exempt many graduates who go into lower paid public sector jobs.

BBC News Online's education editor, Gary Eason, said the suggestion that a higher threshold was planned might explain a curious slip-up by the Solicitor General, Harriet Harman, on Friday evening.

The position is that under the proposals... you don't start paying back until you are earning �15,000 Education department spokesperson Minister's gaffe over fees

Appearing on Any Questions? on BBC Radio 4, she said the proposed repayment threshold was �18,000.

Faced with incredulity from other members of the panel, and from the chairman, she checked her ministerial briefing note and again insisted it would be �18,000.

But a spokesperson for the Department for Education and Skills later confirmed the plan had always been �15,000.

Other concessions apparently being mooted are making more student loans available and writing off fee debts after 20 years.

A pre-Christmas Commons vote on the issue now appears unlikely.

'Start again'

The department will not comment on whether the threshold could change, saying details would become clear when the bill was published shortly.

Senior Labour backbencher Ian Gibson was unimpressed by a policy that was "dribbling out bit by bit".

"We should step back, scrap the bill and rethink the whole situation of higher education in future," he told BBC News 24.

Ministers are ready to listen, says Hain

"We have one major chance to make our higher education system really world class. We should take it."

Many MPs are alarmed that different universities will be able to charge different fees.

Former Labour chief whip Nick Brown is considering rebelling for the first time in 20 years over the issue.

Making concessions on repayment thresholds would not be enough for critical MPs, he said.

"There are fundamental objections to the split that is going to come between those universities that charge the higher fees and those who do not," he said.

Talks continue

Mandy Telford, president of the National Union of Students, said "tinkering" with repayment thresholds would not address fears.

"What this shows is that the government realises it has got an incredibly flawed policy that it cannot get even its own backbenchers to agree on," she told BBC News 24.

Mr Hain also refused to comment on the reports of a �20,000 threshold, saying it would be a decision for Education Secretary Charles Clarke.

"He's been talking to people and is willing to listen about ways in which it can be tweaked," he said.

The Commons leader was confident the government would not be defeated over the issue because the plans were "fair".

Mr Hain said the thinking behind the bill remained that "instead of having upfront fees which hit families and parents, you pay it back through a form of graduate repayment tax".

Tory 'misery'

The Commons leader warned Labour opponents of the bill that the party had to stick together, especially with Michael Howard proving a more formidable Tory leader than Iain Duncan Smith.

He says the Tories' plans to scrap tuition fees would deprive a quarter of a million students of the chance to go to university.

But Mr Howard branded the government's own plans "absurd", saying much of the top-up money would go on arbitrary targets, the new university access regulator and helping poorer families pay the fees.

"The government are actually going to waste the money, the universities are going to see very little, if any, of this money," he told BBC One's Breakfast With Frost.