8.41am: For the Liberal Democrats, the day of agony has finally arrived. MPs are voting on the government's plans to allow universities to raise tuition fees to up to £9,000, a huge public spending reform that will in effect privatise arts and humanities teaching at university (because they will lose all government subsidy) and affect anyone planning to go to university in the future.

But it's also a day that could have profound consequences for the Lib Dems (and perhaps the coalition as a whole). Nick Clegg's party is going to split down the middle, with potentially more than 20 MPs voting against the government. An opinion poll today puts the Lib Dems on 8%, their lowest rating since September 1990. Of course, a poll is just a poll, and the next general election is not due until 2015. But what happens today, and the fact that Lib Dem ministers will be breaking an explicit promise they made not to vote for a tuition fee increase, could damage Clegg and his colleagues for years to come. This is a big day.

My colleague Allegra Stratton has a list of the Lib Dem rebels at the end of her Guardian story. The debate will start at around 12.15pm and the voting will start at around 5.15pm. I'll be focusing on this all day, covering all developments this morning and reporting the debate and the results in full.

9.04am: Here's some more detail about the voting:

MPs are going to be asked to approve a motion tabled by Vince Cable, the business secretary, allowing universities to increase tuition fees to up to £9,000 from September 2012. Under the Higher Education Act, this can be done with a simple vote. Ministers want to get this through now because universities will send their brochures out for 2012 next year. MPs are not voting on the entire package of tuition fee reforms. That will not happen until next year.

Three amendments have been tabled. One, tabled by the Green MP Caroline Lucas, says tuition fees should be scrapped from next year. Another, tabled by the Lib Dem Julian Huppert and the Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards, says tuition fees should be phased out. These almost certainly will not be put to a vote.

A third amendment says that the government has "failed to convince many people of the fairness and sustainability of its proposals" and that any decision about raising tuition fees should be delayed until the government publishes a white paper. This has all-party support. John Denham, Labour's business spokesman (and the lead spokesman on this issue, because the Department for Business is in charge of universities) has signed it, as well as the Tories Julian Lewis and Andrew Percy, the Lib Dems Greg Mulholland, Tim Farron, John Leech and Ian Swales and various other Labour, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and DUP MPs. If this amendment gets put to a vote, this is where the rebellion will be strongest.

You can read the wording of the amendments on the Commons order paper.

The debate will start after business questions ends. This could be any time from 12.10pm to 12.30pm. The first vote will take place five hours later, or by 5.30pm at the latest.

9.24am: Nick Clegg and Vince Cable have both been giving interviews this morning about tuition fees. Here are the key points, courtesy of the Press Association news agency and PoliticsHome.

• Clegg urged students to look at the details of the government's plans before condeming them.

My message to the students who are protesting is to ask them, one final time, to look at what we're actually proposing rather than what they are alleging we are proposing. Actually under our system they will all, all the demonstrators, will pay out less per month than they do at the moment. All the part-time students who are demonstrators wouldn't pay any upfront fees whatsoever. Many of them would never pay the full value of their lone whatsoever.

• Clegg said the government's plans were "the best possible choice we could have made at this time".



• Cable dismissed the latest Lib Dem poll figures. (See 8.41am.)

I'm sure we will turn this around [in the next four years]. I was chosen as a candidate in my constituency in Twickenham and I think we had about 3% in the polls but I was elected a few years later and our number of MPs has grown progressively since then.

• Cable said that he "didn't feel apologetic" about his tuition fees decision and that he did not see this as an issue of trust.

I'd love to be Father Christmas and hand out lots of very popular policies and hand out lots of money ... but I think trust comes from seeing governments making difficult choices.

• Cable said he was "proud" of what the government was proposing.

I am proud of the fact that we've managed to craft a set of proposals which is more progressive than existing arrangements, which does provide universities with a reliable source of income so we can have world-class universities. But it's not easy politically, I don't pretend that for a moment, but in government we have to make tough choices. We've made them and I think we've produced a better system.

• Cable said he had "no difficulty" with Simon Hughes or any other Lib Dem backbencher deciding to abstain.

The abstention is provided for under the coalition agreement. You know the background to this. We would not like to get into this position of having to raise the fee cap. It's not something we wanted. But we've had to compromise under the coalition agreement. Other colleagues like Simon Hughes can and will abstain and I have no difficulty with that.

9.27am: I'll be focusing on tuition fees today, but there's a report out from the standards and privileges committee at 11am that could be interesting. It covers Sir John Butterfill, Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt, Geoff Hoon, Richard Caborn and Adam Ingram and it's about the complaints about what they said to undercover reporters before the election posing as lobbyists trying to hire MPs.

9.40am: Today the Daily Telegraph has published extracts from emails that the National Union of Students sent to the Department for Business apparently showing that the NUS was urging ministers to cut grants and increase the interest students have to pay on their loans as an alternative to raising tuition fees. Here's an extract from the story:

In one email to the department's officials, dated 1 October, [Aaron Porter, the NUS president] suggested that £800m should be "deducted from the grants pot" over four years. That would cut total spending on grants by 61%. Mr Porter also proposed the "introduction of a real rate of interest" for student loans. In an email the following day, Graeme Wise, an NUS political officer, suggested that ministers seeking cuts should start with the "student support" package of grants and loans. He wrote: "It would be better in our view to first mitigate the cuts to provision by seeing how student support can be better focused at lower cost." Mr Wise also suggested that the cuts in support could be imposed on students currently at university. The NUS plans also called for £2.4bn to be cut from the universities' teaching budget over four years, a reduction of 48%.

A "coalition source" is quoted in the paper accusing the NUS of hypocrisy.

But Porter told Sky this morning that the report was "a cynical misrepresentation of the truth". The emails were quoted in the Telegraph in a way that was "very selective", he said. According to PoliticsHome, he went on:

We simply said that Vince Cable's assertion that fees had to treble wasn't necessarily the case and there are other ways in which the savings could be made which would not have resulted in fees rising at all.

9.45am: My colleague Jessica Shepherd, the Guardian's education correspondent, has sent me this:

Jessica Shepherd Photograph: Anna Gordon

The Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) thinktank has pointed out that students who drop out of university have been "airbrushed" out of the argument. In a report, published last month on the government's proposals, the thinktank states that ministers refer to "graduates", but do they mean "former students" too?

"The reality is that there will be large numbers of former students without any higher education qualifications with large loans," Hepi says. "The number of people in this position is likely to increase, firstly because loans will in future be provided to part-time students, where non-completion rates are much higher, and, secondly, because the financial incentives for institutions to ensure that students complete their year of study will be reduced. Under the current arrangements, students who do not complete their year of study are not included when calculating a university's grant. With fees, universities will retain a part or the whole of the fee that replaces the grant. The penalty that a university suffers if a student drops out will be reduced, if not removed."

9.58am: Ed Miliband has challenged all Lib Dem MPs to vote against the tuition fees increase.

Today is a day of judgment on the Liberal Democrats. Before the election, they promised families and young people that they would oppose any increase in tuition fees. Today it looks like many Lib Dems will break that promise. To abstain in this vote will simply allow the government to increase tuition fees. I am calling on all MPs – including Lib Dems – to vote against this increase.

10.06am: John Denham, the shadow business secretary, has accused Nick Clegg of telling untruths. This is what he told BBC News earlier:

Nick Clegg cannot go through this saying things that are not true. I just heard him say that part-time students won't pay any upfront fees. [See 9.24am.] It's not true. The government's own report says that only a third of part-time students will benefit from the loan system. Two thirds [of part-time students] face higher fees that they will have to pay upfront. There has been too much of this, going around making things up in a desperate attempt to impose the highest university fees of any public university system in the industrialised world.

Denham is right. Part-time students will not have to pay upfront fees, but only if they are studying for a certain proportion of their time. Originally they had to be studying 33% of their time to qualify for full loan support. Yesterday, in a concession, Vince Cable announced that that would be cut to 25%. But any part-time student who is doing less than that – for example, working four days a week but studying one day a week (20%) – will not qualify for help.

As my colleague Patrick Wintour reported in the Guardian last week, the business department estimated that two thirds of part-time students would not qualify for full loan support when the threshold was 33%. The department also said it would save a total of £316m between 2012 and 2014 by cutting teaching, fee and course grants to part-time students.

10.18am: There's a lot of interest in the Twittersphere this morning in an article that Michael Gove wrote in the Times in 2003 – when he was a journalist, not an MP – rather brutally putting the free market case for university tuition fees. Here's an extract.

The government is about to introduce a new test for those considering a university career. The central question will be punishingly direct. Do you want to run up a debt of £21,000 in order to go to the best British universities? Some people will, apparently, be put off applying to our elite institutions by the prospect of taking on a debt of this size. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is all to the good. The first point that needs to be made about the so-called deterrent effect of a £21,000 loan is that anyone put off from attending a good university by fear of that debt doesn't deserve to be at any university in the first place. Incurring such a relatively small debt to pay for the huge economic benefit conferred by proper higher education is a fantastic deal. Over a lifetime, the direct financial benefit in higher earnings is around £400,000. Those who attend our best universities can expect to earn even more. Borrowing £21,000, at preferential rates, to secure 20 times that sum, is an offer you'd have to be a fool to turn down. And if you're such a fool that you don't want to accept that deal, then you're too big a fool to benefit from the university education I'm currently subsidising for you … Higher education is now a nationalised industry, with universities utterly dependent on state support for their survival. Like all the nationalised industries which taxpayers had to subsidise in the past, from British Coal to British Leyland, UK universities suffer from grotesque inefficiencies, low motivation, ministerial second-guessing, poor salaries, and a stifling excess of bureaucracy. But at least with British Coal the taxpayer was subsidising the poor. Although it was a hideously inefficient mechanism, giving taxpayers' money to British Coal did transfer resources from the wealthy to keep working-class people in jobs. The stunning injustice of our current higher education system is that working-class people in jobs are paying taxes to subsidise the wealthy. Because anyone who graduates from university, whatever their social origins, is then in a position to make far more money for themselves than they ever pay out for their degree.

At Next Left, Sunder Katwala has written a post on this with the headline: Has Michael Gove revealed the real thinking behind the fees hike? This answer is actually yes. When I conducted a long interview with David Willetts about this subject a few weeks ago, he was quite explicit about wanting to introduce more market forces into higher education (although these are not arguments that his Lib Dem colleagues have been using with any force).

10.27am: Don Foster, the Lib Dem MP for Bath, has just told BBC News that he has not yet finally made up his mind how he will vote today. That's worrying for the whips. He was not thought to be a potential rebel.

10.37am: Turning to a different subject for a moment, Paul Waugh at PoliticsHome says the localism bill has been delayed again. It was originally due to be published last month. Now it has been delayed until next week, or possibly into the new year. "Sticking points are understood to include a proposal to extend directly elected mayors, as well as plans to end 'council houses for life'," Waugh writes.

10.51am: I'm concentrating on parliament and politics today. But my colleague Peter Walker will be covering the student protests on a live blog. You can read it here.

10.52am: According to a survey for ConservativeHome, 79% of Tory activists want the party to govern on its own after the general election. Only 16% want the coalition to continue.

The 79% won't be happy, then, if they read Benedict Brogan in the Daily Telegraph today. He claims that some kind of Conservative-Lib Dem electoral pact is now looking increasingly likely.

At the senior level, Tory members of the cabinet have concluded that it will be difficult to avoid some kind of election arrangement with the Lib Dems. The only significant minister who seems dead set against it is Liam Fox. Others, who just a few months ago were doubtful, have been persuaded both by collegiate proximity to their Lib Dem colleagues and by an enthusiasm for maintaining the pace of radical change … In fact, the pain Lib Dem ministers are suffering over tuition fees makes it all but impossible to contemplate Tories campaigning hard against them in a general election. "Are we really going to stand a candidate against Nick Clegg? Or against David Laws?" one senior Tory asks. It is now plain that the first plank of an informal pact is in place. Ministers of either party will be given a clear run at their seats on election day.

11.04am: John Bercow is not going to put any of the three amendments to the tuition fees motion (see 9.04am) to the vote, I'm told by a Commons source. That means there will just be a straight yes/no vote on the Vince Cable motion at around 5.15pm.

Photograph: the Guardian

11.14am: Stephen Byers (left) has been strongly criticised by the standards and privileges committee for what he said to an undercover reporter posing as a lobbyist before the election. As punishment, he is going to lose the pass he gets as a former MP giving him access to the Commons. Here are extracts from the report.

Mr Byers's suggestion [to the undercover reporter] that, as the architect of the Enterprise Act, he knew ways round it was untrue, as were other statements about amending food labelling regulations, about what was said at a meeting he had held with Lord Adonis, about working for Rio Tinto, about influencing Ofwat's investment programme, and about contacts with civil servants on behalf of water companies. By telling these untruths, Mr Byers brought the house and its members generally into disrepute, contrary to paragraph 15 of the code of conduct … We welcome Mr Byers's full acceptance of the commissioner's conclusions and his unreserved apology to the house for his conduct. We agree with Mr Byers that he was wrong to make the statements he did. The deep regret that he has expressed goes some way towards putting right the wrong. But this was, as the commissioner has found, a particularly serious breach of the code. We do not believe that the matter can be allowed to rest with an apology. We recommend that, for committing a particularly serious breach of the code of conduct, Mr Stephen Byers's entitlement to a parliamentary photopass be suspended for two years, with effect from 1 January 2011. If Mr Byers had not accepted that his conduct was wrong and had not apologised in such unequivocal terms, we would have recommended that this entitlement be withdrawn for a much longer period.

11.17am: The standards and privileges committee report has also criticised Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary. It has urged him to apologise to the Commons in writing and said that he should lose the parliamentary pass he has as an ex-MP for five years.

The [parliamentary commissioner for standards] has concluded that Mr Hoon committed a "particularly serious" breach of the rules of the house in making statements to the undercover reporter about disclosing confidential information he implied he was receiving or could access from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about the UK's strategic defence and security review for the benefit of business clients who might be considering seeking contracts with the MoD and for the benefit of a private equity fund. In the commissioner's judgment, Mr Hoon's conduct brought the House of Commons and its members generally into disrepute, contrary to paragraph 15 of the code of conduct ... We recommend that for committing breaches of the code of conduct, one of which was a particularly serious breach, Mr Geoff Hoon apologise to the House through this committee in writing and that his entitlement to a parliamentary photopass be suspended for five years, with effect from 1 January 2011.

11.20am: Richard Caborn has also been criticised by the standards and privileges committee in relation his meeting with an undercover reporter posing as a lobbyist. It said that he had breached the rules when sponsoring three events in parliament because he did not declare a relevant interest. He will lose the parliamentary pass that he has as an ex-MP for six months. Here's an extract from the report.

The [parliamentary commissioner for standards] concludes that Mr Caborn committed several breaches of the rules of the house, which he suggests were more likely to be the result of careless oversight than of deliberate intention ... We recommend that for breaching the code of conduct Mr Richard Caborn apologise to the house through this committee in writing and that his entitlement to a parliamentary photopass be suspended for six months, with effect from 1 January 2011.

11.27am: The standards and privileges committee report also covered complaints about Sir John Butterfill, Patricia Hewitt and Adam Ingram and what they said when they met an undercover journalist posing as a lobbyist. All three were cleared of wrongdoing. Here are the conclusions in relation to them:

Sir John Butterfill

The commissioner has not upheld the allegations against Sir John Butterfill. We agree with the commissioner that Sir John did not breach the code or the rules, although we do consider that — like the other members — he was unwise to agree to the meeting and we believe that some of his comments were unfortunate. We make no recommendation in this case.

Patricia Hewitt

The commissioner has not upheld the allegations against Patricia Hewitt. We agree with the commissioner that Ms Hewitt did not breach the code or the rules, although we do consider that — like the other members — she was unwise to agree to the meeting. We make no recommendation in this case.

Adam Ingram

The commissioner has not upheld the allegations against Mr Ingram. We agree with the commissioner that Mr Ingram did not breach the code or the rules, although we do consider that — like the other members — he was unwise to agree to the meeting. We make no recommendation in this case.

11.57am: Before we get stuck into the tuition fees debate, here's a reading list for anyone who wants to explore the issue in more depth:

• The Browne report. This is the report (commissioned by Labour) that recommended an increase in fees and a new payment mechanism. The government's plans are based on these recommendations, bit ministers rejected his proposal that there should be no cap at all on fees.

• The government's plans. These are the government proposals announced in November. They are based on the Browne recommendations. Since November, ministers have changed some of the minor details but announced more about how the national scholarships programme will operate.

• The Institute for Fiscal Studies's verdict on the plans. The IFS has published a 12-page report and a summary. "The government's proposals are more progressive than the current system or that proposed by Lord Browne," the IFS says.

• David Cameron's speech yesterday defending his plans.

• A YouGov poll about tuition fees. It includes six questions on this issue, including one showing 49% of people opposed and 38% in favour.

• The Higher Education Policy Institute's response to the government's plans.

• A report from the University and College Union on the impact of government cuts on universities and local economies.

• A report by Universities UK on why universities matter.

12.16pm: There's much excitement in the Twittersphere about the suggestion that the Tory MP Matthew Hancock will vote against the government. That's because Hancock used to work for George Osborne. The suggestion came from the National Union of Students.

But it's not true. I've just spoken to Hancock's office, who tell me he will definitely vote with the government.

Perhaps the NUS muddled him up with the Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock, who is voting against the government. If so, it won't be the first time that they have been confused. It happened on one famous occasion that led to Mike Hancock being praised for his honourable behaviour and being described, by the Financial Times's Alex Barker, as "the Lib Dem who saved George Osborne".

12.25pm: The debate will be starting very soon. Business questions is just wrapping up. But the Labour MP Chris Byrant made a good point about tuition fees just now. He said that if any Lib Dem MPs "abstain" by voting both for and against the rise, they should be given a chance to explain themselves in the Commons tomorrow. MPs are allowed to vote both ways in a division, and sometimes they do this if they want to make it obvious that they are abstaining. If they just choose not to vote, you never know whether or not they are "paired" with another MP. But the Speaker has said in the past that he disapproves of the practice of being both for and against the same measure.

12.28pm: Nigel Evans, one of the deputy speakers, has just said that there will only be one vote. The Speaker has not accepted any of the three amendments.

(See 11.04am.) And the two motions in Vince Cable's name – one allowing tuition fees to rise to £9,000, and another technical one – will be taken together. The vote will be at 5.25pm.

12.32pm: Vince Cable is opening the debate. David Cameron and Nick Clegg are beside him on the frontbench.

Cable says that when he came into government Lord Browne was already reviewing higher education. Cable asked him to make his plans more progressive. This has happened. Under these proposals, 25% of graduates would pay less than they do now.

He also asked Browne to consider a graduate tax. Browne came to the same conclusion as Ron Dearing did when he looked into this for Labour, and Alan Johnson when he was in charge of higher education. Browne concluded a graduate tax was "unworkable". Cable says he is surprised that Ed Miliband has taken his party down the "cul-de-sac" this represents.

12.34pm: On the subject of a graduate tax, Cable quotes from something Peter Wilby, a former editor of the New Statesman, wrote in the Guardian this week. Wilby wrote:

Labour has been seduced into sentimental, sloppy thinking that defends the interests of the affluent, not the poor.

12.41pm: Labour's Jack Straw tells Cable that George Osborne told the Treasury committee yesterday that he would have billions to spend later this parliament when he sells government assets. Straw suggests that this money should be used to fund higher education.

Cable says he will address the funding issue.

A Labour spokesman (John Denham) sent a letter to colleagues saying that university teaching budgets were being cut by more than other departmental budgets, Cable says. But this is because the government is protecting some departments, Cable says.

Denham intervenes. He asks Cable to name any other spending programmes that have been cut by 80% (as the university teaching budget has).

Cable says Labour would have cut his department's spending by 25%. Cable could have cut further education, or apprenticeships, or basic training, but he chose not to cut these programmes. He had to cut university spending by 25%. He could have cut the number of students at university, but he rejected that. He could have made a decision to reduce student maintenance. But that would have affected low-income students at university now. He could have taken "the Scottish option" – cutting funding to universities without giving them the means to raise extra money. But, if he had done this, the great English universities would still have been great. But the Scottish universities would have been in decline.

12.44pm: Ann Treneman, the Times's sketchwriter, has just tweeted this from the chamber.





12.46pm: Labour's Rushanara Ali asks about the abolition of the educational maintenance allowance. That will have a particular impact on British Bangladeshi pupils, she said.

Cable says the existing EMA system is "enormously wasteful". It goes to many pupils who do not need it. The pupil premium will give support to schools and pupils in areas of high deprivation.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, speaking during the Commons debate on tuition fees today. Photograph: PA

12.51pm: Cable says he has eliminated most of the other alternatives to raising money for universities. "The only practical alternative was to retrieve income for universities from high-income graduates once they have left," he says. Today 50 university vice-chancellors have endorsed that approach, he says.

Cable says he has asked the CBI to get its members to provide more employer support for apprenticeships.

Simon Hughes asks what assurances Cable can give that fees of £9,000 will be exceptional and that most will charge £6,000.

Cable says that's a good question. Under Labour, most universities charged the maximum. Cable says any university wanting to charge more than £6,000 will have to meet "very demanding tests" in relation to access.

12.54pm: Vince Cable mentions some of the concessions he announced yesterday designed to make his plans more acceptable.

1.00pm: Cable accuses Labour of shedding "crocodile tears" about social mobility. Social mobility has deteriorated. There are 80,000 pupils on free school meals. Only 40 make it into Oxbridge. That's a "shameful inheritance" from people who claim to be concerned about social justice.

He says the government has had a "difficult choice" to make. But it has opted for policies that provide a strong basis for university funding. He is "proud" to put forward the measure to the house.

1.00pm: The NUS have sent me an email to say that they definitely contacted Matthew Hancock (see 12.16pm) and were told by someone in his office that he was voting against the government. The NUS think Hancock has backtracked. I think it's more likely that the Commons switchboard put them through to the wrong office.

1.03pm: John Denham is speaking now. He says if the Lib Dems vote for the tuition fee increase, they will forfeit the right to call themselves progressives.

If all Lib Dem MPs vote against the measure, it will fall, Denham says.

1.06pm: Denham says that, although today's vote is on a narrow measure, behind it is a policy that represents the most profound change in university funding since the 1920s. No sane person would rush this through without proper discussion. But today MPs are voting without even seeing the government's white paper on this.

Julian Huppert, a Lib Dem, asks Denham to apologise for the fact that Labour introduced top-up fees in the first place.

Denham admits that Labour voted for top-up fees in the 2001-05 parliament. But the policy only came into effect after the 2005 election, he says.

1.10pm: Denham criticises David Cameron for talking down universities in his speech yesterday. Cameron said universities were "uncompetitive".

Denham also quotes from something Cameron said when he was in China recently. Here's the full quote:

In the past we have been pushing up the fees on overseas students and using that as a way of keeping them down for domestic students. We have done the difficult thing. We have put up contributions for British students. Yes, foreign students will still pay a significant amount of money but we should now be able to keep that growth under control.

This means Cameron is raising fees for UK students so that he can keep fees down for the Chinese, says Denham. He calls that "extraordinary".

1.14pm: Denham says that if this fee increase goes through English students will face higher fees than students in any other public universities in the developed world.

(Channel 4's FactCheck looked at this claim yesterday and concluded that it's accurate.)

1.18pm: Asked about the graduate tax, Denham says it's important to decide how much graduates should contribute, before deciding how that money should be raised. Today MPs are dealing with the first point; how much government should contribute, and how much students should contribute themselves.

Denham says the government has underestimated the amount of money it will have to write off through students being unable to repay their loans.

Stephen Williams, a Lib Dem, asks about Labour's own plans to cut higher education funding. Denham says it's a strange experience standing at the dispatch box. Half the time he is criticised on the grounds that Labour did not have a plan to cut the deficit, and half the time he is criticised on the grounds that Labour was planning cuts. What is different is that Labour would not have cut the university teaching budget by 80%, he says.

1.20pm: Denham says that when David Cameron said yesterday that everyone would be better off under the government's plans, he was reminded of the person on those adverts on daytime TV encouraging people to roll up all their debts and include them in one loan. But people end up paying more, Denham says.

John Denham in the Commons today. Ed Miliband is next to him. Photograph: PA

1.22pm: Denham is now quoting David Rendel, the former Lib Dem MP. He has an email that Rendel sent to colleagues. Rendel said he did not think the government's plans were progressive.

1.27pm: Denham says "the average graduate going into a typical job" will be hit hardest by these proposals.

Matthew Hancock – a Tory MP who is voting with the government (see 12.16pm) – asks Denham if he accepts the Institute for Fiscal Studies conclusion that the government's plans are more progressive than the current system or Browne's.

Denham says the poorest 30% will pay more under the government's plans.

For the record, here's what the IFS actually says:

By decile of graduate lifetime earnings, the government's proposals are more progressive than the current system or that proposed by Lord Browne. The highest earning graduates would pay more on average than both the current system and that proposed by Lord Browne, while lower earning graduates would pay back less. By decile of parental income, graduates from the poorest 30% of households would pay back less than under Lord Browne's proposed system, but more than under the current system. While all graduates from families with incomes above this would pay more, graduates from the 6th and richest (10th) deciles of parental income would pay back the most under the proposed system.

1.30pm: A colleague tells me that three protesters have just been ejected from the public gallery in the Commons because they were chanting slogans. I did not see it, because I'm following the debate on television from my office in the Commons. MPs in the chamber are supposed to ignore incidents of this kind, I think, which I guess is why no one has referred to it.

1.33pm: Denham says he is looking forward to the next election, because the government will have to explain why pupils entitled to free school meals (which are generally only available to children whose parents do not work) are exempt from some tuition fees, while students whose parents are in low-paid jobs will not get this help.

(He is referring to this plan, announced at the weekend.)

1.39pm: Denham says he knows what it is like to resign on principle. (He resigned from the government over Iraq.) Referring to Lib Dems who are thinking of resigning over this issue, he says resigning is hard, but that it is worth it.

It is very hard to stand aside from friends and colleagues with whom you've shared many a battle. But I say this; after you've done it, you realise that it was not half as bad as you thought it would be before you did it. The self-respect you gain far outweighs any temporary loss of position, power or income. And the truth is in any generous political party – and mine is not the only generous political party in his house – there is usually a way back.

On that note, he finishes.

1.49pm: David Evennett, a Conservative, is the first backbencher to speak. It's not obvious why he has been called now. Usually the first backbench MP to be called is someone quite senior, like a former minister. Evennett backs the government and attacks Labour for not having a credible alternative.

1.55pm: David Blunkett, the former Labour education secretary, says that when Labour introduced tuition fees, that increased the total amount of money going to universities.

He turns to social mobility.

I know more about social mobility than most because my whole life has been an example of social mobility, from the time when I was on day release and evening classes, to the opportunity to get to university as a mature student …. [Nick Clegg] knows nothing about social mobility, nothing.

He attacks the government for cutting educational maintenance allowances, cutting education funding, and cutting the Aimhigher programme. The government's tuition fee plans are unfair. And they are unnecessary too. Government borrowing will have to go up to £10bn by 2015-16 to pay for the government's plan (because the government will borrow the money it lends to students). These plans will increase the deficit, not reduce it, he says.

The government's plans will discourage students from going to universities, he says.

2.01pm: Dan Byles, a Tory MP, intervened when Blunkett was speaking. He said Blunkett wasn't the only MP to know something about social mobility and that he (Byles) was the first member of his family to stay on into the sixth form. Blunkett said that he knew what it was like to have to get up at six in the morning to do a cleaning job, because that was what his constituents had to do. Byles then complained on a point of order. He said that when he was in the army, he had to get up much earlier than 6am.

Greg Mulholland, a Lib Dem rebel and the MP who tabled an amendment calling for the vote to be delayed (see 9.04am), says it is not too late for a rethink.

This issue will not be over today, he says. After the white paper gets published, there will be further votes on this issue.

2.08pm: Labour's Barry Sheerman is speaking now. He was chairman of the education committee when Labour was in power when it produced a report saying that top-up fees were a good idea. He says he still supports that view. The cost of higher education should be shared between the government, students and employers, he says, although he says he is sceptical about the chances of getting employers to pay up.

2.09pm: There's a huge number of police officers outside parliament. My colleague Peter Walker has more on the student protests live blog.

2.11pm: Ben Gummer, a new Tory MP (and son of John, the former cabinet minister) is speaking now. He appeals to Labour MPs to accept that MPs on all sides are committed to social mobility. Labour tried to make progress on this issue, he says. But Labour's approach failed.

2.21pm: Here is a video of students from Birmingham University unfurling an anti-cuts banner at Westminster Bridge. (First click Off where it says "This page will update automatically every minute" above.)

2.21pm: The Lib Dem MP Martin Horwood will miss the vote because he's in Cancún. According to the BBC, the university of Gloucestershire students' union said it was willing to pay £900 to bring him back to vote because he is opposed to the increase. But Horwood said he was staying in Mexico because the summit there is "of incalculable importance".

His absence will not make any difference because, if Horwood returned, Chris Huhne would return too to vote for the government.

2.24pm: Alasdair McDonnell, an SDLP MP, says the government's proposals will put pressure on the Northern Ireland executive's budget. Universities in Northern Ireland will come under "enormous pressure" to raise their own fees. He is going to oppose the measures, he says.

2.32pm: Andrew Percy, a Conservative, is speaking now. He has said already he will vote against the plans. He says he was the first member of his family to go to university. He had a full grant, and he is opposed to these plans because he thinks they will deter people with a background like his.

Another Tory, Anne Main, says she marched against top-up fees in 2004. But, now they are in place, it's too late to go back, she suggests.

2.35pm: Andrew Percy admits he does not have a credible alternative to what the government is doing. But he thinks the government should not be taking a decision now. It should spend more time looking for a better alternative. He says he will vote against the government because it has not made its case.

2.39pm: Labour's Emily Thornberry is speaking now. She says Lib Dem MPs have "double-crossed the electorate". If they vote for the tuition fee increase, they will never be forgiven.

2.43pm: Sky's Jon Craig has just posted this on Twitter:

There is now a huge crowd of protesters on Parliament Square, facing a line of police officers protecting parliament. (As for what's happened to Brian Haw and his fellow peace protesters, who are stuck in the middle, I have no idea.) There are more details on Peter Walker's demo blog.

2.48pm: Sam Gyimah, a Conservative, says that when parliament debated top-up fees in 2004, people said top-up fees would deter poor students from applying. That didn't happen, he says.

2.57pm: Labour's David Lammy says he will join students and parents in their protests. He mentions the figures he produced this week showing that 21 Oxbridge colleges took no black students this year. The government's plans will not tackle this problem, he says.

3.06pm: George Osborne, the chancellor, has been speaking at a press gallery lunch this afternoon. He said the Conservatives made a serious mistake when they opposed top-up fees in January 2004.

It taught us a very important lesson, that if you lose intellectual credibility … you just put yourself further away from government. We mistook opportunism for opportunity and paid a heavy price for it.

Osborne also predicted that Labour would not go into the next election backing a graduate tax.

If you're interested in the 2004 debate on top-up fees – this was the vote that Tony Blair famously won by a margin of just five – you can find the Hansard report here. I remember it well, largely because Alan Johnson delivered a brilliant wind-up speech at the end of the debate. I've just been taking a quick look at it again. It includes a passage on why a graduate tax would be a bad idea.

3.11pm: Labour's Sharon Hodgson says higher tuition fees will discourage working-class pupils from applying to university. She quotes the article that Michael Gove wrote for the Times in 2003 (see 10.18am) and says it shows that this government will be even worse than Margaret Thatcher's.

3.22pm: John Leech, a Lib Dem, says he will be opposing the plans. He says he thinks university education benefits the country at large, as well as the individual.

Robert Flello, a Labour MP, says his daughter is doing a course in applied theatre. That course will not exist in a year's time, he says, because its funding is being cut. Kevan Jones asks Flello if his daughter saw the course as an "investment opportunity" when she applied, as the Conservatives have suggested she should. No, says Flello. But the existence of the course will benefit society as a whole, because students learn how to use theatre in places like prisons.

3.23pm: My colleague Hélène Mulholland has written a story on the ongoing Commons debate.

3.25pm: Here's some video of the Commons debate, with contributions from John Denham, the shadow business secretary, and Lib Dem rebel Greg Mulholland. (First click Off where it says "This page will update automatically every minute" above.)

3.26pm: Turning away from tuition fees for a moment, the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg has got a good story. She has posted this on Twitter:

3.34pm: Alok Sharma, a Conservative, rejects the argument that higher tuition fees will deter people from going to university. Student numbers have gone up by 44% in the decade since tuition fees were introduced, he says.

3.44pm: Until now there has been a six-minute time limit on MPs' speeches John Bercow, the Speaker, has just said that he is going to reduce this to four minutes to try to allow time for everyone to speak.

It's been a fairly pedestrian debate so far. John Denham's peroration about resigning on principle was excellent, and the rest of his speech punchy and confident, but he never quite got round to explaining how Labour's alternative would work. Vince Cable was clear, frank and professorial, but he was severely barracked and seemed to be struggling sometimes.

Otherwise, very few of the other speeches so far have been memorable. We've had loads of contributions from the new intake, but very few from parliamentary grandees. Lib Dem elder statesmen like Sir Menzies Campbell, Charles Kennedy and Simon Hughes seem to be keeping a low profile.

3.51pm: Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart, who run the Revolts website, have produced a briefing note about previous Lib Dem rebellions. It's a short note, because generally the Lib Dems aren't a rebellious lot.

"Even after the party grew in size after 1997, the most striking feature of the Lib Dems in the Commons is that they have been by far the most cohesive of the main political parties," the authors say. The largest parliamentary rebellion the Lib Dems have had since the party was founded in the late 1980s came in 2002, when 15 MPs defied the whip. And what was it all about? The mining of limestone, apparently.

4.01pm: Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, was due to give a speech to a rally of students in London this afternoon. I'm not sure whether or not he got there, but the TUC have send out his words anyway. Here's an extract.

If these reforms go ahead, we risk throwing away half a century of progress. Tens of thousands of jobs will be slashed, institutions, departments and courses will be forced to close, and student places will be cut at a time when demand is at record levels ... We are facing an American-style market in higher education where the top universities will be reserved for the privileged few and ordinary people are priced off our campuses. As research by the NUS shows, 70 per cent of current students would have avoided going to university if tuition fees had been set at £7,000 – with the poorest students most likely to be put off.

4.04pm: Back in the Commons, the DUP's Sammy Wilson says the Lib Dems should not be compromising over tuition fees because of the promises they made before the election. He says they should have decided to compromise over their demand for a referendum on the alternative vote instead.

4.18pm: Anna Soubry, a Conservative, says that she went to a comprehensive and that she needs no lectures on social mobility from David Blunkett. (See 1.55pm.) She says Labour's record on this was shameful.

4.18pm: Labour's Jeremy Corbyn says that protesters have been kettled outside parliament. He says the government is "destroying the opportunities and life chances of a whole generation" with its plans to raise tuition fees.

The money for higher education should come from higher taxes, he says.

4.19pm: Julian Lewis, a Conservative, says he normally disagrees with Jeremy Corbyn. But today he agrees with most of what Corbyn said. (Lewis has already said that he is going to vote against the government.)

4.27pm: We've had our first resignation. Mike Crockart has resigned as parliamentary private secretary to Michael Moore, the Scottish secretary, Sky is reporting. That means he will be voting against the tuition fees increase.

4.28pm: Back in the Commons chamber, Julian Lewis is comparing the tuition fees increase to the poll tax. The Tories believed in the poll tax. But they could not convince people it was fair. The same applies to the tuition fees increase, he says.

I can hear people talk about percentages untll they are blue in the face, or in the yellow in the face. But they will not convince me that young people from poor backgrounds will not be deterred. If they were not to be deterred, then why is it necessary to introduce the special measures for those having the free meals. I would have been deterred. I don't want others to be.

4.34pm: Labour's Pat McFadden, the former business minister, says that he supports the principles behind the Browne report. But he does not support the government's cuts in the university teaching grant. That cut explains why fees are going to have to rise so much, he says.

4.35pm: Here's the text of the letter that Mike Crockart has sent to Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem who is the government's deputy chief whip, explaining why he is resigning as a PPS.

It is with great regret that I am today tendering my resignation as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Michael Moore, the Secretary of State for Scotland. This has not been an easy decision to make and I wanted to outline my reasons for coming to the conclusion that I have no option other than to vote against the proposed tuition fee increase. The Browne Report has outlined a vision for Higher Education funding which moves the bulk of university funding from government onto students. The resultant rise in potential student debt will, I believe, seriously impact on people's choices. This is especially true for those students from poorer backgrounds, many of whom have no role models in their schools or families to demonstrate to them the benefits which can accrue from a university education. I recognise that the proposals have been substantially amended and improved from the original Browne Review and I congratulate all ministers on what has been achieved. I do feel, however, that adding bursaries, exempting some students from one or two years of fees and attaching conditions to higher fees in some institutions will only serve to create a system so complex as to leave many 17 and 18 year olds unsure of what assistance they can expect. This may lead to a drop in applications from poorer students especially to those institutions offering more expensive courses. I applaud the efforts to include a more generous package of maintenance support and to extend the finance scheme to most part-time students. However, these achievements will not go far enough to outweigh the prospect of large amounts of debt at the end of a degree, which for many will not be something they believe they can shoulder. I know that many of my colleagues have agonised over the issue of tuition fees and come to a different conclusion, believing that this is the best solution possible given the tight public finances left to us by the previous government and I respect their decision. However, I believe that access to higher education is a key enabler of social mobility and the best way to narrow the gap between the richest and poorest in society. I cannot therefore vote for a system which I believe puts barriers in the path of able students. I remain committed to the coalition and I look forward to playing my part in the months and years ahead.

That's interesting. He is saying that the concessions that the government has offered could actually make the situation worse because they will leave the system "so complex as to leave many 17- and 18-year-olds unsure of what assistance they can expect".

4.52pm: The spirit of Jo Moore lives on. The parliamentary authorities have chosen to release details this afternoon of complaints about MPs' expenses that have been "secretly" resolved over recent years. MPs were able to avoid any publicity about questionable claims in cases that were deemed relatively trivial by paying the money back. But parliament has resolved that this information should now be published. One Tory MP, David Tredinnick, quietly repaid £755 that he claimed on expenses for software that used astrology to diagnose medical conditions. A full story is on the Guardian website.

4.57pm: According to Channel 4 News, the Lib Dem MP Jenny Willott has also resigned as a parliamentary aide. She was PPS to Chris Huhne. If that's correct, she will be voting against the government too.

5.10pm: MPs are going to vote on the tuition fees increase at 5.25pm. There will be only one vote, and we will get the result at about 5.40pm. The government is expected to win, but we still don't know how many Tories and Lib Dems will rebel, or abstain. Some MPs have been keeping their intentions secret right up until the last minute.

The debate has been rumbustious, but not especially enlightening. We've had many contributions from new MPs, but relatively few from parliamentary heavyweights. Many Lib Dem MPs who are going to vote against the government seem to have chosen not to speak.

Gareth Thomas, the Labour universities spokesman, is now winding up for Labour. He has just accused David Cameron and George Osborne of being Britain's premier "loan sharks" because what they are going to do for do for student debt.

5.12pm: Vince Cable is looking very isolated on the frontbench. He's not alone, but he hasn't got many colleagues with him. Thomas has just mocked him as the "Widow Twankey" of the government.

5.15pm: Labour speaks for "ordinary working people" and Britain's middle class, says Gareth Thomas. He tells the Lib Dems that abstaining is not enough. They should vote against the plans.

5.20pm: David Willetts is winding up for the government. Peter Bone, a Conservative, says he still has not made up his mind about how to vote. Can Willetts assure him that the £150m scholarship fund will benefit low-income families, and not just people on benefit? Willetts says that he personally will be in charge of deciding how this money is spent and that he will take this issue into account.

5.20pm: David Willetts says six years ago Alan Johnson was doing the job that Willetts is doing today and that at the time he defended the approach the government is now approaching. (I posted a link to the Johnson 2004 speech at 3.06pm.)

Willetts also quotes from the open letter Johnson wrote to Ed Miliband in September saying: "For goodness' sake, don't pursue a graduate tax."

5.23pm: Willetts says Labour's main complaint was about the speed with which the reforms are being introduced. But the Browne review was set up more than a year ago, he says. It took evidence in public.

Labour MPs jeer as Nick Clegg comes into the chamber to take his seat on the frontbench.

5.24pm: Here's a tweet from the Tory MP Louise Bagshawe.

5.25pm: Willetts says his policy is fair and progressive and puts power in the hands of students.

He finishes. The Speaker calls the vote.

5.28pm: MPs have gone to vote. Simon Hughes has remained sitting in the chamber. That must mean he's definitely abstaining.

5.32pm: The Tory MP Lee Scott has resigned as a parliamentary aide to Philip Hammond, according to the blogger Guido Fawkes. If that's correct, that means he will be voting against the government. That was expected.

5.32pm: The Tory MP Philip Davies has confirmed on Twitter that he is voting against the government.

5.36pm: This morning John Denham accused Nick Clegg of not telling the truth about part-time students. (See 10.06am.) I explained why Denham had a point. Channel 4's Cathy Newman has now given it the FactCheck treatment and concluded that Clegg was telling "a festive fib".

5.38pm: We'll get a result very soon.

5.42pm: The government has won by 21. MPs voted by 323 to 302.

5.48pm: The government has a working majority of 84 at the moment. Tonight it's been cut to a quarter of that. A majority of 21 is still comfortable, but this will almost certainly be a record Lib Dem rebellion. (See 3.51pm for more on this.) We'll get more details soon when the division lists comes up.

MPs are now voting on a second motion relating to further changes to higher educations regulations.

5.51pm: Here's what Tory HQ are saying about the result on Twitter.

Photograph: PA

5.53pm: Labour's John Denham has just issued this statement about the result.

This is a moment of no turning back for Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. They have lost all credibility with the country and cannot now claim to be a party of fairness. The government is tripling fees and cutting public funding for university teaching by 80%, leaving English students facing the highest public university fees in the industrialised world. This was only made possible by the support of Liberal Democrats – they should hang their heads in shame. This decision was not about deficit reduction, but a political choice, driven by the Conservative and Lib Dem government, to cut most university teaching funding and put the burden for most degrees solely onto students. They will face huge debts and many will pay back for 30 years. The plans are not fair, not necessary and not good for higher education. Conservatives and Liberal Democrat MPs have let down their constituents, let down young people and let down higher education.

Photograph: Andrew Hasson for the Guardian

5.55pm: And Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, has issued this statement.

This is a dark day for the future of higher education in this country. The huge hikes in tuition fees, together with the scrapping of Educational Maintenance Allowance and proposed cuts in college funding, amount to nothing less than a Government assault on our young people – and an attack on the principles of universal education. Many people here in Brighton may be priced out of going to university as a result of today's vote – and those who do go are likely to be saddled with massive debt. This is unacceptable for a society which values social mobility and inclusiveness.

5.58pm: And this is from Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union.

Allowing fees to rise to £9,000 paves the way for the government to brutally slash universities' teaching budgets. There will be no winners if we transfer the responsibility and cost for higher education from state to student.

5.59pm: The result in the second division was exactly the same as the first. The government won by 323 to 302 - a majority of 21.

6.02pm: Ed Miliband has told the BBC: "This is a sad day for democracy … people will lose faith in politics."

6.05pm: I've been given the names of five Tories who voted against the government: David Davis, Philip Davies, Andrew Percy, Mark Reckless and Jason McCartney. There may be more. There is speculation that about 10 Tories rebelled.

According to Sky, around 20 Lib Dems rebelled.

We'll get the precise figures and the names soon.

6.12pm: The protest outside Westminster is turning ugly. Peter Walker has more details on his live blog.

6.13pm: Vince Cable, the business secretary, has just issued a statement about the vote.

Today's vote has been an important step in turning the Coalitions commitment to deliver a high-quality university sector that is more responsive to the needs of students into a reality. Under our proposals no student will have to pay upfront for tuition and both parties in the Coalition have worked hard to develop a much fairer and progressive graduate contribution scheme. Graduates will only begin to repay the cost of their tuition and living support once they are in high earning jobs, with significant discounting for those on low and modest incomes.

6.14pm: Vince Cable is on Sky now. He has just said that the government's majority was "four times larger than Tony Blair managed on the same issue [in 2004]".

He also seemed to criticise Labour for "scaremongering". It was important not to frighten people about applying to university, he said.

6.29pm: Ed Miliband is on Sky now. He says politics was at a "low ebb" before tonight and now it's at an even lower ebb.

What really concerns me is the impact this will have on social mobility and people getting on in our society.

He says the university teaching budget is being cut by 80%. The government has decided to transfer the cost of teaching from government to students.

Labour will campaign for "educational opportunity", he says.

6.29pm: Here are the figures for how the Lib Dems voted. Some 21 Lib Dems voted against the government.

The rebels were: Annette Brooke (Dorset Mid & Poole North), Sir Menzies Campbell (Fife North East), Michael Crockart (Edinburgh West), Tim Farron (Westmorland & Lonsdale), Andrew George (St Ives), Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South), Julian Huppert (Cambridge), Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye & Lochaber), John Leech (Manchester Withington), Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne), Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West), John Pugh (Southport), Alan Reid (Argyll & Bute), Dan Rogerson (Cornwall North), Bob Russell (Colchester), Adrian Sanders (Torbay), Ian Swales (Redcar), Mark Williams (Ceredigion), Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire), Jenny Willott (Cardiff Central), and Simon Wright (Norwich South).

The 27 Lib Dems who voted for the government were: Danny Alexander (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey), Norman Baker (Lewes), Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed), Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley), Tom Brake (Carshalton & Wallington), Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane), Malcolm Bruce (Gordon), Paul Burstow (Sutton & Cheam), Vincent Cable (Twickenham), Alistair Carmichael (Orkney & Shetland), Nick Clegg (Sheffield Hallam), Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton), Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey & Wood Green), Don Foster (Bath), Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay), Duncan Hames (Chippenham), Nick Harvey (Devon North), David Heath (Somerton & Frome), John Hemming (Birmingham Yardley), Norman Lamb (Norfolk North), David Laws (Yeovil), Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk), Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove), Jo Swinson (Dunbartonshire East), Sarah Teather (Brent Central), David Ward (Bradford East), and Steve Webb (Thornbury and Yate).

The government whip Mark Hunter (Cheadle) acted as a teller. That means he supported the government, but that his name will not appear as a "yes" in the division list.

And the eight Lib Dems who did not vote were: Lorely Burt (Solihull), Martin Horwood (Cheltenham), Simon Hughes (Bermondsey & Old Southwark), Chris Huhne (Eastleigh), Tessa Munt (Wells), Sir Robert Smith (Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine), John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross), and Stephen Williams (Bristol West).

Huhne and Horwood did not vote because they are at the climate change conference in Cancun. Huhne would have backed the government, and Horwood would have voted against.

6.35pm: My colleague Nicholas Watt points out that the Lib Dems' three most senior office-holders split three ways. The leader, Nick Clegg, voted for; Tim Farron, the party president, voted against; and Simon Hughes, the deputy leader, abstained.

6.42pm: Here's an extract from the letter Jenny Willott wrote to the Lib Dem chief whip, Alistair Carmichael, explaining why she was resigning as a PPS and voting against the government.



Whilst I support many aspects of the higher education proposals, including abolishing upfront fees for part-time students and the generous support for young people from less-privileged backgrounds, I feel I can't support the significant increase in the fee charged per year. As a result, I cannot support the overall package. It is with great sadness that I resign, as I fully support the coalition government and believe that the Liberal Democrats, with Nick in charge, are playing a crucial role in steering Britain towards a better future.

6.43pm: Six Tories voted against the government. They were: Philip Davies (Shipley), David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden), Julian Lewis (New Forest East), Jason McCartney (Colne Valley), Andrew Percy (Brigg & Goole) and Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood).

7.00pm: Here's an evening summary.

• MPs have voted to allow tuition fees to rise to up to £9,000 from 2012. This will mean that in arts and humanities students will be paying the full cost of their university education. All state support will have been removed. Students will get loans to cover the costs, and they will repay through a progressive graduate contribution scheme. Ministers says all graduates will pay less per month than they do now, but opponents fear that the scale of the debts will deter people from applying to university.

• David Cameron saw his majority cut to 21 in the vote. The government's working majority is 84, but today they only won the vote by 323 votes to 302. Some 21 Lib Dem MPs voted against the government. That means that more than half of Lib Dem backbenchers rebelled. It is also the biggest rebellion since the Liberal Democrat party was formed in the late 1980s. Six Tories also voted against the government.

• Three MPs have resigned as ministerial aides. Jenny Willott (who was Chris Huhne's PPS) and Mike Crockart (who was Michael Moore's PPS) quit so they could vote against the government. They are both Lib Dems. And Lee Scott, a Tory, resigned as Philip Hammond's PPS. He abstained in the vote.

That's it from me. Thanks for all the comments.