New figures show that the Government is still nowhere near achieving its goal of cutting net migration to the “tens of thousands” by 2015.

A separate report by the Office for National Statistics shows that the foreign-born population of Britain has increased by 43.5 per cent since Eastern European countries joined the EU in 2004, to reach 7.5million.

Ministers insisted that their immigration reforms are starting to have an effect.

Damian Green, the Immigration Minister, said: “We are now starting to see the real difference our tough policies are making, with an overall fall in net migration and the number of visas issued at its lowest since 2005.

“At the same time, there are encouraging signs that we continue to attract the brightest and best and to support tourism in the UK.

“We will continue to work hard to ensure that net migration is reduced from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament.”

But Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch UK, a pressure group, said: “These figures are a disappointment. Net migration remains far too high.

“Today’s numbers underline the huge difficulty of getting immigration back under control after 13 years of chaos.”

Sarah Mulley of the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank added: “The combination of recession and immigration policy changes may be starting to have an impact but more than a third of the fall is due to a rise in emigration.

“The statistics show that the Government remains a long way from its goal.”

The ONS’s quarterly migration update showed that net migration – the number of people entering Britain minus those who leave – stood at 216,000 in the year to December 2011.

This was a fall on the 252,000 recorded for the previous year but the ONS said the difference was “not statistically significant”.

Immigration dropped slightly to 566,000 while emigration increased to 350,000.

Study remained the most common reason for people moving to Britain for at least a year but in the year to June 2012 there were 282,833 student visas issued, a fall of 21 per cent as the Government tries to cut the number of non-EU students.

The number of National Insurance numbers given to foreign nationals fell 15 per cent to reach 601,000 while work visa fell by 7 per cent to 147,385.

The number of people granted settlement in Britain fell by 33 per cent to reach 138,589, however asylum applications rose by 3 per cent in the second quarter of the year.

Most (55 per cent) immigrants came from outside the EU but the rights of free movement granted to European citizens mean it is difficult for ministers to achieve their goal of reducing net migration, despite the cuts to visa numbers.

Some commentators said it may not even be clear by 2015 whether or not the target has been reached, because the margin of error around the ONS figures means that net migration may be 35,000 higher or lower than the recorded number.

Dr Martin Ruhs, Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said: “In simple terms, the Government could miss the ‘tens of thousands’ target by many tens of thousands and still appear to have hit it. Conversely the Government could hit, or even exceed its target and still appear to have missed it.”