Charles Clarke has announced the appointment of the government's new access regulator for higher education.

Former Manchester University vice-chancellor Professor Sir Martin Harris was named on Friday as the man charged with ensuring degree courses take a wide range of students.

The holder of the £100,000 per year post will have the power to withhold the right to charge top-up tuition fees if colleges cannot prove they are taking their fair share of working class and ethnic minority students.

But the education secretary said he did not foresee the job being taken up with what critics have called "social engineering" because most universities are already making efforts to broaden their entrance procedures.

"I am delighted that Martin Harris has agreed to become the first director of fair access. It is important to ensure people with talent get the opportunity to go to university if they choose to do so. The Office for Fair Access will, by working with universities, play an important role in enabling this to happen," Clarke said.

"The director will make sure that every institution charging higher fees will have the quality bursaries, outreach work and financial guidance in place to help encourage greater applications from under-represented groups. The director will not have a remit over university admissions. Admissions are and will remain a matter for universities themselves.

"Some universities have already announced bursaries of up to £4,000 since the announcement to create OFFA. That means that some low income students will receive almost £7,000 in non-repayable support each year. This is good news and I hope others follow suit.

"The director of fair access may be an essential position but I know universities are as passionate about widening participation as I am. That is why I expect there to be a healthy relationship between institutions and the director. I would consider it to be a success if the director never had to rely on his sanctioning powers during his term in office."

Sir Martin said he backed the government's view that "there should be a continuing drive to widen participation".

"However, the introduction of variable tuition fees is inevitably a time of change for institutions," he added.

"Whilst one of my key aims in this new post will be to implement a process for setting up access agreements to safeguard fair access, I hope as director to do this by working as collaboratively as possible with institutions and in doing so I will respect the secretary of state's wish not to add to their bureaucratic burden.

"My past experience working in the sector has led me to understand and respect institutional autonomy and it is on this basis that I look forward to working with the sector."

But Conservative higher education spokesman Chris Grayling said the appointment had not changed his party's view of the post. 

"It is very disappointing that such an eminent figure in the university sector should accept an appointment that is so unpopular among vice-chancellors and principals," he said.

"In order to preserve academic standards it is our clear intention to abolish OFFA at the earliest opportunity and with the general election only a few months away Sir Martin's tenure is likely to be a short-lived one."