Revealed: The 10 most common nationalities of foreign-born mothers who gave birth in NHS hospitals in 2011.

Most came from Poland, India and Pakistan with a total of 184,000 children born in these circumstances in NHS hospitals

The overall 25.5% rate revealed today is the highest since records began in 1969

In London in 2011 56.7% of new mums were originally from outside the UK

Newham in London has a rate of 77%, the lowest levels were in the north-east of England

Net migration is still at more than 200,000, official figures show, much higher than the Government's 2015 target of under 100,000.

The Government has today revealed the top-ten most common nationalities of foreign-born women who gave birth in NHS hospitals in the last year.

A record one in four of all babies born in England and Wales in 2011 had a foreign-born mother, with women originally from Poland topping the list, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Other nations represented in the top ten include Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Somalia.

A total of 184,000 children were born in these circumstances, with almost half of them in London, which has a foreign-born mother rate of 56.7 per cent, far above the national average of 25.5 per cent.

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International: Foreign-born women have children every day in the UK, reaching record levels in 2011

According to official figures, the average hospital birth can cost £1,600, meaning the total cost to the NHS of these would have been at least £30million. 

Some of the women will have been born abroad and settled in the UK but a number will have visited just to use the NHS. 

Boom: Health tourism, including maternity care, is believed to be costing the NHS around £200 million per year

So called ‘health tourism’ as a whole is thought to cost taxpayers as much as £200million a year.

Urgent treatment, such as maternity care, is provided regardless of residence status or ability to pay but hospitals must take reasonable measures to recover debts from overseas patients if they can trace them.

Some trusts are owed tens of millions by foreign patients and have been forced to write-off some of these debts.

It came as it was also announced that net migration to the UK is still at 216,000 a year, which is still double the Government's 100,000 target.

This means that means hundreds of thousands more people every year are coming to the UK when compared to numbers who leave.

Meanwhile the number of foreign-born mothers is rising consistently annually, with the figures now double what they were 30 years ago.

Figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that a 25.5 per cent of all children born in 2011 had foreign-born mothers, compared with 25.1 per cent the year before.

More than 20,000 were from Poland, followed by 18,000 from Pakistan, almost 15,000 from Indian and and more than 8,000 from Bangladesh. 

It is the highest proportion of births to non-UK born mothers since parents' country of origin was introduced in birth registration in 1969.

Growth: Figures revealed today show that the number of foreign mothers giving birth in England and Wales has reached record levels

In Newham, east London, more than three quarters of new mums were born outside the UK but choose to give birth here.

The ONS found that a slight rise of 0.1 per cent in the overall number of newborn children compared with 2010 was entirely due to foreign-born mothers.

Women born in the UK had 1,957 fewer babies in 2011 compared with the previous year, in a reversal of rising numbers of births to UK-born women since 2002.

Meanwhile mothers born outside the UK had 2,702 more babies, in line with a trend since 1995 for the number of births to women who came to the UK from abroad to rise year-on-year.

'It is rising every year because the number of non-uk born women living in the UK of child bearing age is also rising every year,' an ONS spokesman told MailOnline.

'The statistics are simply based on the birth registration process so there is no information about whether the mother then left the UK after having a baby.'

Dr Martin Ruhs, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the estimated figures were based on the International Passenger Survey (IPS) and margins of error meant they could be 35,000 higher or lower than stated.

Regions: The highest number of births last year involved mothers from the Middle East and Asia followed by the EU

So while net migration was put at 216,000 for last year, this was the central estimate for the figure which could range from 181,000 to 251,000, meaning that the apparent drop is not statistically significant.

'There is a constant desire among policy makers in all parties, the press and other interest groups in having 'hard' facts and specific numbers about migration, but the reality is that sometimes these are simply not available,' Dr Ruhs said.

'The uncertainty around the official migration estimates means that the figures need to be used and interpreted with great care.'

NIGERIAN TOURIST HAD '£200,000' QUINS ON THE NHS

Nigerian-born Bimbo Ayelabola, 33, right, travelled to Britain to give birth to quins at a cost of up to £200,000 to British taxpayers.

The wife of a wealthy businessman had two boys and three girls by Caesarean section in April last year and was in Homerton Hospital, East London, for almost two weeks.

Mrs Ayelabola, from Lagos, who had been taking a fertility drug, said at the time: ‘I had already had miscarriages and couldn’t bear the stress another pregnancy would cause. So I decided to visit my family in London.

‘I thought I would stand a much better chance of avoiding another miscarriage in a calmer place with friends and family.’

Mrs Ayelabola claimed her husband left her and returned to Nigeria after discovering she had given birth to five babies. She was given a visa to stay in Britain which runs out in December of this year.

Long-term immigration fell slightly to 566,000 from 591,000, similar to the level it has been at since 2004, while emigration rose slightly from 339,000 to 350,000.

Study was the most common reason for those coming to Britain, with figures showing 232,000 came last year, similar to the 238,000 in the year to December 2010.

But the number of visas issued for the purpose of study, including student visitors, were down a fifth in the 12 months to June, the ONS figures showed.

There were 282,833 visas issued for study, a fall of 21% compared with the previous 12 months.

Migration Watch chairman Sir Andrew Green 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 thirteen years of chaos.  

The government is on the right track and numbers will come down in future years. Meanwhile, the government must ensure that they pursue the national interest ahead of vested interests. They now need a blitz on bogus students and much tougher action on enforcement and removal.  For too many years we have had only a token effort at tackling illegal immigration.'  

The Home Office told MailOnline that the statistics show their measures are working.

Immigration Minister Damian Green 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. We are doing this by improving the selectivity of our immigration system and increasing enforcement activity to prevent people coming into the UK illegally and removing those with no right to be here.'