EU citizens will still be allowed to come to the UK to live and work after Brexit as long as they register with the Home Office, Amber Rudd has announced.

The Home Secretary said that freedom of movement will officially end in March 2019 when Britain leaves the EU, but revealed plans that suggest the existing immigration regime will remain largely unchanged during the transitional period after Brexit.

Government sources conceded that the rules governing EU migrants coming to Britain during the transitional period “may look like a similar arrangement” to free movement.

It raised concerns among Eurosceptic MPs that the Government was not serious about bringing down net migration, with one warning that a registration scheme must not be used as a way of “keeping the existing system in place by another name”.