The government has welcomed the publication of figures on the number of people from the new eastern European EU member states who are working in the UK.

Data published by the Home Office on Wednesday revealed that just over 24,000 people from the eight new EU member states in central and eastern Europe have signed the official workers' register.

The scheme was introduced ahead of the May 1 enlargement of the EU amid concerns that Britain's welfare system could prompt a "flood" of immigrants from countries such as Poland.

The new data, which covers the period from May to June, found that around 14,000 of the total were already in the UK before enlargement took place.

The Home Office said the figures showed that "the predicted dramatic increase of new arrivals has not materialised".

"There is also no evidence that accession workers are exploiting the benefits system," a statement added.

It estimated that the workers were contributing over £4 million a week to the British economy and paying over £2 million a month in tax and national insurance.

Home secretary David Blunkett said the figures showed Britain was not attracting an excessive number of migrants and welcomed the fact that the arrivals were making a contribution to the economy.

"Today's figures prove that fears that the scheme would not pick up the full range of workers from accession countries were unfounded; as was most of the media speculation about the numbers of new arrivals," said Blunkett.

"By contributing to our economy and paying into the system these accession state workers are supporting our public services, not being a drain upon them."

Meanwhile, separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics found that there was a 20 per cent increase in the number of people arriving in the UK from the eight former communist countries, with the total reaching 99,000 arrivals.

That compared to a 10 per cent increase in the number of visits to Britain by Western European residents and a two per cent rise in the number of people visiting from North America.

The Liberal Democrats said the figures had proved media scaremongering to be unfounded.

"Some elements of the media will be eating humble pie as a result of these figures," said home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten.

"There was clearly no 'flood', but instead a trickle of people making use of new opportunities."