BRITAIN will continue to welcome foreigners who want to work here even after Brexit, a government minister has insisted on a visit to Dorset.

Robin Walker, a minister at the Department for Exiting the European Union, was in Poole to speak to representatives of key industries including fisheries, farming, ports and tourism.

He also insisted there would be an “implementation period” after 2019 before the full consequences of leaving the European Union came into effect.

Visiting the offices of Poole Harbour Commissioners, Mr Walker acknowledged there were concerns locally about where labour would come from after Brexit. The hospitality industry has voiced worries about finding staff, as has the major Poole employer Lush.

“You’ve got a strong local economy but one of the problems we were discussing is the difficulty of filling jobs,” he said.

“Some of these are good problems to have as a government but they’re still challenges for the sector.”

But he added: “When we leave the EU, we’re not leaving Europe. We’re still going to be a country which will welcome people who have talent, who have energy and want to come to this country and pay tax.

“That doesn’t mean you cannot control the process. It means there’s a degree of control that we didn’t necessarily have in the world of free movement.”

He added: “Smooth market access is in our discussions as being in both the interests of the UK and the EU.”

The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has talked of free movement of people continuing for a period under a transitional deal.

Mr Walker said a transitional arrangement was “already part of our strategy”, but played down reports of splits in government ranks. “I think there’s an element of silly season speculation about who’s saying what,” he said.

He acknowledged the concerns of the financial services industry around Brexit – with 1,000 jobs in the sector at Barclays in Poole and 4,000 at JP Morgan in Bournemouth. “They’re hugely important to the UK economy,” he said.

He said it would be important to negotiate access to the European market after Brexit. “That’s part of a broad deal between the UK and EU after we’ve left,” he added.

He also said the withdrawal from the UK was “of huge importance” to the fisheries industry because it meant “the UK taking control of our territorial waters”.