THE Scottish Conservative Party has backed universities in an ongoing row over plans to force them to take more students from deprived backgrounds.

Last week, Michael Russell, the Education Secretary, announced his intention to press ahead with legislation to set universities targets for widening access.

Mr Russell has also suggested those institutions that did not meet the targets would face fines.

Universities Scotland, which represents university principals, attacked the proposals, saying they did not address long-standing problems of inequality across society.

A number of individual institutions also questioned the plans – St Andrews argued that statutory force "may lead to bad practice".

Yesterday, Liz Smith, education spokeswoman for the Scottish Tories, said: "Universities are entirely correct to reject this latest Scottish Government attempt to micro-manage our universities.

"University leaders have already warned of the difficulties of implementing these targets and also of the dangers of moving the focus away from trying to reduce inequalities in the earliest years and in our schools.

"One only has to look at some of the drop-out rates in some universities to see that it is in these earlier stages that more work needs to be done."

However, student leaders have already backed the Government plans, with Robin Parker, president of NUS Scotland, saying: "The reaction by the most elitist institutions against pro-posals to increase access to university for the poorest communities was very disappointing.

"Making sure university places are given on the basis of genuine merit must be our goal and we believe it's one we can achieve."