More than 60 staff at one of Worcester’s major employers, Worcester Bosch, heard the city’s MP and Brexit minister, Robin Walker explain how the rights of EU citizens in the UK will be protected after the UK leaves the EU.

The question and answer event had been scheduled for many week,s but came on the morning that it was announced the UK and EU had reached agreement on initial issues and could move forward to discussing a trade deal.

Mr Walker said: “It was a really good event, and there were a lot of good questions. There are a number of workers here who are EU citizens and I’d wanted to come to reassure them we were working to protect their rights - but there were fewer questions on that than I’d anticipated.

“I think people had heard the good news that EU citizens who move here before we leave the EU will be able to stay, and will have their rights protected. They will have access to healthcare, they’ll be able to study and work here and as they do now.

There were plenty of other questions asked about the negotiations that will now continue.”

Mr Walker rejected criticism from the British in Europe campaign that both EU citizens in the UK and British people abroad had been ‘sold down the river by a grubby compromise’

He said: “I don’t think that sort of rhetoric gets us anywhere. We had wanted to go a bit further than the EU did when it comes to guaranteeing voting rights for citizens abroad- but different countries in the EU have different rules. We are ambitious for that, and will continue to negotiate on that.”

Sven Torrent Worcester Bosch’ s operations manager at its Derbyshire plant said: “It was an excellent event - Robin was very open and honest and answered all the questions very fully.I asked whether it would really be possible to get a deal done by the time we leave the EU and he said it would, though it won’t be easy.”