The fees plans have provoked student protests

The House of Lords inflicted three defeats during the report stage debate of the Higher Education Bill.

Ministers want English universities to be able to charge students up to �3,000 a year for courses from 2006.

Peers voted to defer the fees for those on gap years in 2005, to limit them to the first three years of a degree, and said state funding should not be cut.

All the extra top-up fee money should be on top of normal state funding, and should not be used to reduce current cash streams, they said.

Education Minister Baroness Ashton said the proposal would tie the government's hands indefinitely and give higher education protection not on offer to other priority areas.

'Pay scandal'

A spokesman for the Department of Education and Skills said the government would take account of the peers' views and announce in due course how it would respond.

"It is unsurprising that a government bill has been amended in the Lords," he said.

"These amendments will have serious implications for the taxpayer and universities which we will have to consider very carefully."

Fifty-seven Labour MPs rebelled when the bill was debated in the House of Commons over plans to allow different universities to charge different amounts up to the �3,000 limit.

On Tuesday, the government defeated calls for a government appointed academic salaries review body to give independent advice about pay for university staff.

Lady Ashton said she understood concerns about what some peers called the "national scandal" of low pay.

But she said it was not the government's job to regulate salaries in universities and colleges.