THE UK Government is in full retreat today, announcing it has dropped a plan to force companies to publish lists of their foreign workers after the proposal was widely condemned as xenophobic.

Last week at the Conservative Party conference, Amber Rudd, the home secretary, warned that foreign workers should not be able to “take the jobs that British people should do” and unveiled a plan to make firms publish the proportion of “international staff on their books”.

The proposal caused outrage and was condemned from within and outwith the Tory party as a bid to “name and shame” businesses, which took on large numbers of migrant workers.

Critics, including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, said the plan was repellent and reactionary. Her SNP colleague, MP Mhairi Black, even suggested Conservative immigration policies were now reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

While Ms Rudd began the retreat on the proposal last week, stressing, amid the furore, how it was simply part of a consultation exercise, the condemnation continued this weekend.

Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s former policy chief, denounced the foreign workers’ list idea as “repugnant,” a sentiment shared by Nicky Morgan, the former education secretary, who stressed that it would be “inadvisable” to proceed with it.

Five days after Ms Rudd’s highly contentious announcement, the UK Government has today further retreated with Justine Greening, the new education secretary, making clear the lists of foreign workers would not be published but would be kept confidential and used to help ministers identify skills shortages.

She told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: "That is really about collecting the right evidence we will need if we're going to be able to respond to skills shortages of employers...This is not data that will be published, there will be absolutely no naming and shaming,"

Asked if this meant none of the information compiled would be publicly available, Ms Greening replied: "Correct. This is about informing policy so we understand particularly which areas and parts of the country there are skills shortages, evidenced by the fact employers are not taking local workers as much as they might do and it then enables us really to tailor policy in those areas so we can respond to that and make sure people can take advantage of the opportunities economically in their areas.”

Her remarks were later echoed by Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, who told BBC Radio 5Live: "What I can absolutely rule out is that we will not be asking companies to list or name or publish or identify in anyway the number of foreign workers they have."

The education secretary also appeared to retreat on another controversial proposal as she played down reports that foreign academics had been banned from helping give advice to Whitehall on the Brexit negotiations.

The controversy flared up on Friday after an assistant professor at the London School of Economics claimed she had received an email saying she and other colleagues "no longer qualify" as advisers because there were foreigners.

However, Ms Greening made clear overseas advisers were indeed welcome to advise the UK Government.

"Absolutely,” declared the London MP, “and there's been no change in the policy and we'd always, of course, have the necessary security checks...There's been no change in the policy. I'm pleased you raised it because it gives me the opportunity to clarify that," she told Robert Peston.

For days the row over the Tory government’s approach to controlling migration in the wake of the Brexit vote has sparked headlines both on the foreign workers’ list plan and reports of the foreign academics ban.

The SNP, preparing for its own party conference later this week, has claimed the issues have shown the Conservatives at their “most toxic”.

Ms Sturgeon described the foreign workers’ list proposal as “disgraceful and disgusting” and offered her government’s support to any Scottish firm, which decided not to comply with the UK Government’s plan.

Writing in The National, Ms Black, who represents Paisley and Renfrewshire South, suggested the policies now being brought forward by the Conservatives were “reminiscent of early 1930s Nazi Germany”.

Meantime, Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, has written to Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, over the foreign academics issue, noting how there was “widespread revulsion at the insular and intolerant direction the UK government appears set on taking”.

Noting how five of the world's best universities could be found in Scotland and their success was due in part to their ability to draw the best academic talent from around the world, she insisted that such expertise should be used to enhance the policy process and not be denigrated.

She told the secretary of state: “These latest proposals come just days after a suggestion that firms should list how many foreign workers they have and the NHS should become ‘self-sufficient’ from immigrant doctors.

“I fear the UK Government risks becoming so enthralled to nationalism that it is prepared to ignore expert advice on the most complex geopolitical and socio-economic event in modern history on the simple basis of where that expert was born,” added Ms Dugdale.