Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Statement by Baroness Anelay of St Johns (HLWS119), what action they have been taking on the issue of unpaid London Congestion Charge bills and fines incurred by diplomatic missions and international organisations, with what results, and when they expect a satisfactory agreement to be reached.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has held meetings throughout the past year with a number of diplomatic missions and international organisations about outstanding London Congestion Charge bills and fines, and other debts. The subject of a mission’s outstanding debts is also raised with all incoming Heads of Mission.

In March this year FCO officials wrote to all diplomatic missions with unpaid London Congestion Charges over £100,000 requesting payment of the outstanding fines as a matter of priority and to give them the opportunity to pay the outstanding fines, or to dispute them with Transport for London (TfL), before we published the details.

Statistics provided by TfL show that the vast majority (around two thirds) of diplomatic missions pay Congestion Charges. Diplomatic missions which do not pay, claim that the Congestion Charge is a form of tax from which they should be exempt under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) 1961. The view of the Government is that there are no legal grounds to exempt diplomats and they are therefore expected to pay Congestion Charges. Officials from the FCO, the Department for Transport (DfT) and TfL continue work to identify a solution to the legal impasse with non-paying missions.