How we got to this point

By Gary Eason
BBC News Online education editor

Universities complain their teaching effort is underfunded

The government's victory in the vote on its plans for variable student fees is a crucial milestone in what has been a long-running saga.

In a speech in Greenwich almost exactly four years ago, the then education secretary, David Blunkett, made plain his opposition to "top-up" fees.

He gave a warning to those who felt the UK could "replicate the North American model".

The government here was not in the business of subsidising people from low-income families so they could "scrabble their way" into universities with very high fees levels, he said.

Afterwards, he said: "I've already made it clear that we won't pay top-up fees while I am secretary of state."

Ominously he added: "I will not be secretary of state for ever."

Manifesto pledge

In the summer of 2000, a report from the Russell Group of 19 elite universities proposed a system in which universities would be free to set their own charges for courses.

The higher fees faced by students would be offset by scholarships and improved loans which would be intended to ensure that young people from deprived backgrounds would not be excluded.

Sound familiar?

Again education ministers made it clear they were having none of it.

And Labour's 2001 election manifesto said: "We will not introduce 'top-up' fees and have legislated to prevent them."

To the government's critics - including many of its own MPs - that promise was unequivocal.

Labour was re-elected of course and Mr Blunkett moved on to the Home Office.

New proposals

At the Labour Party conference that October, Tony Blair surprised many when he said "a better way" had to be found of supporting students through university.

The government's review of student fees was apparently the result of the hostile reception Labour politicians had received on the doorsteps during the general election campaign.

This time a year ago, the much-delayed White Paper on higher education finally appeared - and with it came the plan for variable tuition fees of up to £3,000 a year, compared with the current flat rate of £1,125.

Cries of betrayal. Ah, but these were not "top-up" fees, education ministers have argued.

They do not necessarily "top up" the cost of tuition from what students currently pay to what their courses actually cost - which is put at four or five times as much.

Indeed, because they introduce variability into the system, fees could even fall - though as yet nobody seems to have located any course where that might happen.

All change

The opposition has been furious but the government essentially had changed little when the Bill finally was published earlier this month.

Concessions, they've had a few - but then again, too few to mention, some would say.

They have been aimed at enhancing support for students from poorer families - the poorest would in effect have the cost of fees met, even though nobody has to pay them until they have graduated and are earning at least £15,000.

The current Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, repeatedly confirmed during the debate prior to Tuesday's vote that it would require primary legislation - another change in the law - to raise fees above the index-linked £3,000 maximum.

The president of the National Union of Students, Mandy Telford, has been vociferous in her opposition to the plans.

She said after the government's narrow victory: "For us the fight is far from over."

But the principle is now established: there is to be a market in higher education in England from 2006.