The weather may not be the standard August fare, but one seasonal phenomenon is proving to be far more dependable; the contentious claims that follow the quarterly publication of immigration statistics.

With the figures merely a few hours old, the Daily Mail published an article which claimed: “Number of immigrants living in the UK long term soars by 20%”

However, the statistic isn’t all it is cracked up to be.

The rise trumpeted in the headline seemingly refers to the overall rise in net immigration, not a change in the number of immigrants living in the UK long term.

The percentage of non-UK nationals in the UK was 7.1 per cent of the population in the estimate for December 2009. This was up from 6.9 per cent a year earlier.

Where a 20 per cent rise can be seen, however, was in estimated long-term net migration to the UK, but even this does not mean that there has been a 20 per cent rise in the number of people coming to live in the UK long-term.

As has been widely reported, the rise is itself a product of a fall in emigration that was significantly larger than the decrease in immigration.

The increase in people “choosing to live in the UK long term” flagged up by the Daily Mail is actually driven by less people choosing to leave.

As Sarah Mulley, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research told Full Fact: “There has been a 20 per cent increase in net immigration, but that is a flow of people not a stock.

“There is nothing in the ONS figures that suggests the migrant population has increased by anything like 20 per cent. In fact, the migrant population of Britain is pretty stable. 

“Also, the increase in net immigration is mostly explained by the fact that fewer British people are moving abroad - there hasn't been an increase in immigration."

Rather than a 20 per cent rise in foreign nationals coming to live in the UK, the break down of the figures suggest that net immigration of non-British citizens remained broadly stable year on year, at a little over 220,000.

Grants of settlement did see a significant rise, up 37 per cent in a year, but this is not the figure to which the report refers to – strange given that it is that much higher.

Even the rise in settlement does not necessarily represent a sudden surge in people coming to the UK to live here.

A backlog in processing applications, and a time lag in people applying for settlement or citizenship from earlier years when immigration was much higher could potentially explain the sharp rise here.

But when it comes to the statistics in the headline at least, it seems he Daily Mail is confusing immigration and immigrants, in addition to some of its readers.