Release of immigration data blasted

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Mr Woolas questioned the motives of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in publishing figures last week that showed one in nine UK residents was born abroad.

He said he had tried to stop the publication of the data and that the ONS's decision was "at best, naive or, at worst, sinister".

Writing to Sunder Katwala, general secretary of the left-wing Fabian Society, Mr Woolas said most people believed the Government had released the data.

He said: "In fact, it was the ONS with no ministerial involvement and indeed despite my objections. What is worse is that the press release highlighted the one in nine figure as the main finding.

"So, Government gets the blame by some for whipping up anti-foreign sentiment when it is the independent ONS who are playing politics.

"The justification from the ONS who had, out of schedule, highlighted the figure two weeks earlier because it was 'topical' is, at best, naive or, at worst, sinister."

Mr Woolas added that the fact that one in nine people who are in Britain were born overseas was "neither new nor informative".

The latest ONS data was released after the organisation revealed that the number of foreign workers increased by 175,000 to 2.4 million last year while the number of British fell by 234,000 to 27 million.

It was suggested at the time that the timing of the release could have been designed to embarrass Gordon Brown over his controversial 'British jobs for British workers' slogan.