A NORTH Yorkshire MP has delivered the blunt warning that two-thirds of the Labour Party is opposed to university "top-up" fees.

In a bruising Commons speech, Selby MP John Grogan warned Tony Blair he could face his biggest revolt yet if he presses ahead with plans to allow elite universities to charge students up to £3,000 per year.

The Labour MP said: "How can 18-year-olds from working-class estates in Selby possibly decide whether to take a degree at Cambridge, where they will have to pay?

"The fee will not be £3,000 ultimately, because the cap will go, and they will have to pay many more thousands of pounds. "How can they possibly decide whether that will benefit them most?

"If they are risk-averse - all the indications are that working-class children are risk-averse for a whole variety of reasons - they will go to the nearest university. Their choices will be restricted."

Mr Grogan said: "I gently tell those on the Front Bench that this will be the first domestic policy issue since 1997 where not only have both major Opposition parties lined up against it, but so have a very substantial proportion - 50 per cent, or perhaps a bit more - of Labour backbenchers, and there is the House of Lords as well.

"Politics is ultimately a game of numbers, and I really do not see how the current proposals can possibly get through the House."

Mr Grogan spoke out in a debate on the Tory Party's plans to scrap top-up fees and student tuition fees altogether.

Neither Mr Grogan nor York MP Hugh Bayley backed the Tories, saying they were guilty of "political opportunism".

The MPs also opted not to support a Liberal Democrat motion attacking the fees, which could be charged by York University, on Monday.

But the key test for the Government will come when it asks the MPs to support legislation allowing the introduction of the charges this autumn.

Ministers insist students who attend top universities will earn more cash in later life, so it is fair they should pay more.

Updated: 10:50 Thursday, June 26, 2003