Professor Brian Cox has called for universities to have freedom to admit more science students, in a talk where he highlighted the UK's ability to produce outstanding results from its science industry.

Dr Cox was speaking at Fisher Scientific's Science World event that was hosted at Wembley Stadium.

After the event, he spoke to reporters about restrictions on university places for pupils who are enthusiastic about science. He said: "The number of skilled children applying to do science at university is now rising.

"The big problem for me is that we can't educate all of the science students who want to come to university, because we're restricted by the amount of money we've got and various regulations about the number of students we can take into university."

Red tape and bureaucracy are holding universities up from allowing more students to study science-orientated subjects, Cox commented. He said they should be allowed to take as "many people as actually want to do science".

The TV star and physicist complimented the efforts of teachers in engaging children with science. In terms of getting children to the university stage with a passion for science, the system may be working. However, this is leading to oversubscription in some areas, which is a shortfall on behalf of the education system, which should ideally be providing places to all those that are enthused about the subject.

This is a point Dr Cox looked to make. He said: "The first thing I'd like to see is universities being freed up to actually be able to take as many people as actually want to do science."

Dr Cox was touted as the main event at the Fisher Scientific day, where a large number of people crammed in to the lecture hall to hear him speak. He discussed the big bang theory, the Higgs-boson particle and the large hadron collider, as well as the efficiency of the UK science industry and the lack of funding it is being given.