Brexit: Leaked plan to give preference to British workers.

British workers would get preference over those from EU countries in the jobs market following Brexit, a leak of a draft Home Office plan suggests.

Firms would have to recruit locally unless they could prove an "economic need" to employ EU citizens.

They could face a skills tax to boost training of UK workers if they still chose to employ unskilled EU staff.

The idea - in a leaked document obtained by the Guardian - is part of a plan to cut low-skilled migration.

It has not been signed off by ministers, who will set out their post-Brexit migration plans later this year.

But Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: "The public voted to leave the European Union. That means freedom of movement has to end."

He said "people with the right skills" would still be "welcome".

But he added: "Equally we have to make sure that British companies are also prepared to train up British workers.

"The public are very clear, they want to see immigration not stopped but brought properly under control."

The Home Office document obtained by the Guardian, entitled the Border, Immigration and Citizenship System After the UK Leaves the EU, is marked extremely sensitive and dated August 2017.

Among the ideas in it are:

• A cap on the number of unskilled workers from the EU
• Introducing a salary and skills threshold
• Preventing EU migrants from job-seeking in the UK
• Ending the right to settle in Britain for most European migrants
• Placing new restrictions on their rights to bring in family members

"The government will take a view on the economic and social needs of the country as regards EU migration, rather than leaving this decision entirely to those wishing to come here and employers," the document states.

Low-skilled migrants would be offered residency for a maximum of two years while those in "high-skilled occupations" would be granted permits to work for a longer period of three to five years.

The document says the new regime would only come fully into force at the end of a transition period, which could last up to three years.

Full story at BBC.