MPs rebel over funding cuts for second degrees

Without warning, the Government has announced that it is scrapping the £100million a year given to the 170,000 who take a second degree or a shorter course.

The move has outraged MPs on all sides, who warn it will punish anyone wanting to study part-time, often to change careers.

Worst affected will be mothers who want to retrain and return to work after a period at home looking after their children.

In future, they will be treated in the same way as foreign students from outside the EU - with universities and colleges receiving no government funding for teaching them.

The Open University will be particularly badly hit, losing £4million a year.

It was set up by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Mr Brown worked for it as a part-time lecturer after graduating from university.

Now 211 MPs have signed a Commons motion demanding that the Government thinks again.

They include 86 Labour MPs - enough to overturn the move in a Commons vote - among them a number of former ministers, including Keith Vaz, Frank Field and Kate Hoey.

The Tories will increase the pressure today by tabling a Commons debate expressing concern at the withdrawal of the funding.

Higher education spokesman David Willetts said: "There is cross-party support for the Open University, Birkbeck and other institutions that give people a second chance.

"It's bizarre that the Government wants to take £100million from them without consulting anybody beforehand.

"It completely undermines Gordon Brown's claims that he wants to see people studying and learning throughout their lives."

David Latchman, master of Birkbeck College, London, which specialises in part-time education, said: "This change will affect part-time students and the institutions that teach them particularly seriously.

"Universities will lose good students who cannot pay the increased fees.

"These are professional people being denied the opportunity to improve their skills for the changed workplace.

"For the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills - which renamed itself to focus on the need to deliver graduates with skills - this is a short-sighted move."