MPs have criticised the government's decision to withdraw funding from people taking second undergraduate degrees.

The Commons innovation, universities, science and skills committee used a report on Thursday to raise concerns over moves to transfer funding from equivalent or lower level qualifications (ELQs) to first degrees.

The report said that the plans announced last year were "premature" and that there was no "hard evidence of its likely effectiveness".

It warned that the decision could lead to a 200 per cent increase in fees for some ELQ students.

The decision "has the appearance of a decision taken in some haste, the full effects of which and consequences for other policies such as the need for re-skilling have not been fully examined", it argued.

Committee chairman Phil Willis said: "We cannot see why the government had to rush the changes out last September and start the withdrawal of funding form ELQ students in the academic year 2008/09.

"There is a major review of tuition fees due in 2009. It would have made more sense to have waited until then."

He welcomed moves to encourage more people into university, but added: "We could find no convincing evidence that ELQ students were preventing access for first-time undergraduates or that there was a significant unmet demand from first-time graduates.

"Nor did we see any convincing evidence that part-time students would gain from the redistribution of funds away from ELQ students.

"Indeed overall support for part-time students remains precarious and we felt that these proposals are actually in danger of undermining improvements and current progress."

Higher education minister Bill Rammell said that ELQ students would continue to receive more than £200m funding but it was right to give priority to students who had not studied for a first degree.

"We believe we have struck the right balance between creating opportunities for first-time students and those who need to return to study," he said.

"We estimate that our plans to redirect £100m will lead to at least 20,000 people studying for the first time in higher education."

However, shadow universities secretary David Willetts called on ministers to postpone the change.

"This powerful report reinforces all our objections to the government's policy which has hit second-chance students so hard," he said.

"There was no prior consultation. The consequences were not examined properly. And the transitional arrangements are deeply unfair."