Diplomats owe over £116m in congestion charges

Image copyright PA Media

Diplomats owe more than £116m to Transport for London for unpaid congestion charges, the Foreign Office has revealed.

The US Embassy owes the largest amount at almost £12.5m, while the Embassy of Japan owes over £8.5m.

The diplomats also owe over £200,000 in unpaid parking fines, with Nigeria’s High Commission owing over £47,000.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the government had held meetings with embassies to “press for payment”.

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The figures for the congestion charge – the fee for most vehicles travelling in central London, which goes towards investment into public transport – dates back to between 2003 and 2018, with a total of £116,868,825 outstanding from embassies.

The parking fines date from 2018 and total £200,686.

The congestion charges for the US alone rose by more than £520,000 in one year, whilst Japan’s went up by almost £500,000 for the same period.

As well as topping the list for parking fines – up by £8,000 from the previous year – Nigeria was third on the congestion charge list, owing over £7m.

Congestion charge – top five embassies by amount owed

Parking fines – top five embassies by amount owed

In a written statement, Mr Raab said as well as the meetings, the government had written to diplomatic missions and international organisations with debts “giving them the opportunity to either pay outstanding debts, or appeal against specific fines if they considered that they had been recorded incorrectly”.

However, a number of embassies claim that under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, they do not have to pay taxes, which they consider these fees to be.

A Foreign Office spokesman said they did not believe there were any legal grounds to exempt diplomats from paying the congestion charge, adding: “The charge is comparable to a parking fee or a toll charge, which diplomatic missions and international organisations are required to pay.”

And when it came to parking fines, he added: “Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, those entitled to immunity are expected to obey the law and we therefore expect all foreign diplomats to pay their parking fines.

“As the [foreign secretary’s statement] points out, we have made a concerted effort to urge missions to pay their fines.”

The BBC has contacted the US, Japanese and Nigerian embassies for a response.