The amount of money spent on access funds, set up to attract students who might be deterred by the cost of higher education, is to be doubled.

There are also special measures to help mature students, the disabled and single parents.

The announcement comes as around 30 backbench Labour MPs are preparing to vote against the government following a debate on the Teaching and Higher Education Bill inthe House of Commons.

David Blunkett tells BBC News: "This programme asks people to make a contribution when they are at their maximum prosperity"

This Bill will pave the way for the introduction of fees of up to £1,000-a-year for students entering higher education from September, as well as abolishing the system of student maintenance grants.

The Education Secretary, David Blunkett, said the £44m set aside for access funds during the new academic year would make them available to part-time students for the first time.

Specific steps include a new £250 hardship loan for students who find themselves in financial difficulties and a £2m fund to pay the tuition fees of part-time students who lose their jobs after starting courses.

Other measures will see subsidised loans made available to students up to and including the age of 54 from autumn 1999, as opposed to the current age limit of 50; the maximum grant available to disabled students rise to £10,000-a-year; and the retention of the £1000-a-year single parent's grant.

David Blunkett: "We are facing the future"

Mr Blunkett said: "We are determined that students should have the support they need to take up and stay on courses of higher education.

"In doing so we are releasing the money needed for further and higher education in the years ahead."

He highlighted figures due out later this week which are expected to show an overall one per cent increase in the number of students applying for places in higher education. These appear to confound earlier fears that the introduction of fees would reduce the number of applicants.

Critics of tuition fees say they are a break with the Labour party's tradition of encouraging those from poorer backgrounds to go into higher education.

The Labour MP Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell, who intends to vote against the government, said: "One way most of my generation, including David Blunkett, overcame inequality was through education.

"Now we seem to be kicking away the very ladder we used ourselves - free higher education."

Labour backbenchers who have put their names to amendments to the Teaching and Higher Education Bill acknowledge that the government's huge majority means that they have no chance of success.

Supporters of the government's policies have been confidently predicting that the rebellion will fizzle out, with only 10 to 15 MPs backing the amendments.

'Student poll tax'

Opposition parties have attacked the government's fees proposals.

The Shadow Education Secretary, David Willetts, said the government should stick to the proposals outlined in the Dearing report, which called for the introduction of tuition fees across the board to fund the retention of maintenance grants to support lower income students.

"We are going through all this pain but there is no gain," he said. "If we are to have tuition fees, at least let the government say the money will go to universities, not just be a student tax."

The Liberal Democrats' Education Spokesman, Don Foster, said: "The introduction of means-tested tuition fees is tax on learning. It's a student poll tax."