Boris Johnson has been told he does not "have a Scooby" about Brexit by an SNP MP on the foreign affairs select committee.

The foreign secretary was repeatedly whether or not maintaining single market membership was an objective of the UK Government by the Nationalists' Europe spokesman Stephen Gethins.

Johnson claimed the term single market is "increasingly useless".

He said: "We are going to get a deal which is of huge value and possibly of greater value ... We are going to get the best possible deal for trade in goods and services."

Johnson added: "There are many countries that sell very effectively into the single market and that's certainly what we will do."

Gethins told the foreign secretary his answers, and those of other ministers involved in the Brexit negotiations, demonstrated that: "You don't know. Ye dinnae ken. You don't have a Scooby."

The foreign secretary insisted the UK can remain a "lodestar and magnet" for skilled migrants despite stricter post-Brexit border controls.

He told MPs quitting the EU would allow Britain to be a "soft-power superpower", spreading its influence around the world to countries which felt they had been "forgotten" in recent decades, including the Gulf states.

Johnson added the remaining 27 EU states have "a huge interest" in reaching a deal which would allow Britain to continue to trade its goods and services.

He added it was "complete nonsense" to suggest trade links were dependent on allowing free movement of people.

The Cabinet minister said: "The idea that the Brownian movement of individuals, of citizens across the surface of Europe is somehow there on tablets of stone in Brussels is a complete nonsense.

"It's a fiction. We are taking back control of our borders as we said we would and that's what we will do.

"It doesn't meant that we are going to be hostile to people of talent who want to live and work here.

"I think it is extremely important that we continue to send out a signal of openness and welcome to the many brilliant people who help to drive the London economy and the UK economy."

Johnson maintained there was no contradiction between placing tighter controls on immigration and continuing to welcome the best and brightest from around the world.

Brexit means "restoring our democracy and control of our borders and our lives and a fair bit of cash", he told the committee.

He said: "But Brexit is not any sort of mandate for this country to turn in on itself and haul up the drawbridge or to detach itself from the international community.

"I know as a former mayor of this city how vastly our capital and our whole economy has profited from London's role and the UK's role as a lodestar and a magnet for talent.

"I believe there is no inconsistency between the desire to take back control of our borders and the need to be open to skills from around the world."

Johnson said he thought Britain had done "the right thing" in voting to leave the EU on June 23.

He told the committee: "I think those who prophesied doom before the referendum have been proved wrong and I think they will continue to be proved wrong.

"Obviously it will take time before the full benefits of Brexit appear."

Johnson revealed Prime Minister Theresa May will become the first female guest of honour at a summit of the Gulf Co-operation Council later this year as part of a drive to build Britain's post-Brexit links with the region.

He told the committee that before becoming foreign secretary he had spoken with "a sheikh" from a Gulf state who told him that Britain had "somehow become less present in that country politically, culturally, commercially" and other powers, including France, had moved in.

"I am here to tell you this morning in so far as that was ever true of the UK, that neglect is being reversed with astonishing speed," he said.

The Foreign Office is approaching Brexit with a spirit that was "more energetic, more outward looking and more engaged with the world than at any time in decades", he said.

He added: "That outward-looking spirit is present not just in the Gulf but across the world and I think it is going to intensify as we extricate ourselves from the EU and forge a new identity as a global Britain."