The government has said it will examine further changes to its university top-up fees following last night's narrow victory.

After the government saw its majority slashed to just five votes, ministers indicated they will examine the concerns of Labour MPs.

Higher education minister Alan Johnson said that he is prepared to look at further changes to the legislation.

But he warned the rebels that ministers would not necessarily accept their proposed changes.

"I am not closing it off, I am willing to have the debate and argument," he told the BBC.

Calls for an increase in the proposed threshold at which graduates will begin to repay course costs from £15,000 to £20,000 a year were unlikely to be met, Johnson added.

"Is that where we want to concentrate our resources?" he asked.

But he said that there was "plenty of time" to examine the idea.

A total of 316 MPs voted for the Bill, while 311 voted against, producing the smallest majority for Labour since it took office in 1997.

Some 72 Labour MPs are thought to have voted against the legislation, with a further 24 abstaining.

Johnson said several of the rebels had genuine policy concerns, but others had "personality issues" with the prime minister.

One rebel who eventually backed the bill said Tony Blair to stop behaving like "a president without a Congress" and spend more time listening to backbenchers.

"Unless the prime minister changes his modus operandi, then legislation by nervous breakdown, threat of suicide and talk of betrayal will remain the norm," said former government whip Graham Allen.

"Iraq, foundation hospitals and higher education have all given us examples of what can go wrong if policy is created fully-formed at the centre, and dumped on parliament without any formal pre-legislative scrutiny.

"It falls to him to recognise that this is not a sustainable strategy, and create the means by which he can work in tandem with the rest of our democracy rather than estranged from it. If he doesn't then, sooner or later, the elastic will snap."