Over 200,000 Britons fleeing the UK each year as record 160,000 foreigners are granted citizenship

A raft of statistics released by Whitehall revealed 164,635 foreign nationals were granted UK passports in 2007 - the equivalent of one every three minutes.

The figure is up seven per cent on the previous year and takes the total since Labour came to power to almost 1.2m.

Citizenship pledge: More than 160,000 foreign nationals became British while more than 200,000 Britons emigrated during 2006

But, while increasing numbers of foreign nationals opt to make a new life in Britain and naturalise their status here, UK citizens are heading abroad in record numbers.

More than 200,000 British citizens left the country in 2006 as emigration hit record levels.

Among 400,000 emigrants in 2006, the Office for National Statistics said 207,000 were British citizens.

Nearly one in three went to live in Australia or New Zealand. A quarter went to Spain or France, and around one in 12 went to the United States.

The rising rate of emigration meant that nearly 1.6 million Britons left the country to live abroad between 1997 and 2006.

The increase in the number of passports being given out comes despite Government attempts to make it harder for migrants to 'earn' the right to live here permanently.

At the end of 2005, the controversial 'Britishness' test was introduced - forcing foreign nationals to take a short multiple-choice quiz before citizenship was granted.

It was predicted this would lead to a drop in numbers, but while there was a small fall in the number of grants made in 2006 - the first full year of testing - last year the total number of migrants having their cases approved surged by seven per cent.

It pushed the total beyond the 2005 record of 161,700 to the new all-time high. In 1997, when New Labour was first elected, only 37,010 passports were handed out.

The mountain of statistics released today also contained bad news for the Government on asylum.

There was a 16 per cent rise in asylum applications in the first three months of this year, to 6,595, compared with the same period in 2007.

The number of failed asylum seekers deported from January to March was down 13 per cent to 2,805.

It means the total number of failed asylum seekers living in the UK - which already stands at 285,000 - is likely to have continued to grow.

The Home Office opted to focus on a fall in the number of arrivals from Eastern Europe, revealed in yet another statistical release.

The numbers arriving to work from the former Eastern Bloc was down by around 12 per cent to 45,000 in the first three months of this year - the lowest level since the start of 2005, when the influx began to gather pace.

The number of Bulgarians and Romanians applying to work in the UK has also dropped to its lowest level, with 8,205 applications in the first three months of this year, compared to 10,420 in the same period last year.

It is likely to fuel speculation that, as the economies of the former Eastern Bloc improve, and Britain faces uncertainty caused by the credit crunch, would-be migrant workers are instead opting to stay home.

Commenting on the asylum figures, Border and Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said the overall number of foreign nationals being removed was improving.

He said: "People in Britain welcome legal migrants who work hard and play by the rules.

"But we will not tolerate law breakers, which is why we will prioritise their expulsion from Britain. We are continuing to remove one person every eight minutes, last year that included a record number of foreign prisoners."