I can not find where they said that Royston.
Link please.
The BBC piece is from this year, and the figures go up to Sept 2008.

Now you read extracts of my extracts.

290,000 rise in overseas-born UK residents, which hit 6.5 million in the year to June 2008."
" and the "main pressure was now immigration from outside the EU"

right to settle in the UK was 145,965, an increase of 17% on the previous year.

Asylum applications were 10% higher in 2008 at 25,670 "

grants of settlement are up 17%



"The asylum statistics are ominous, as they show the first signs of a system sliding back into the chaos of previous years. Applications are up 10%, decisions are down 11%, and the number waiting for an initial decision has risen by a third. "