Unpaid Congestion Charge fees and fines by embassies set to break £50m barrier

As of yesterday, the total in unpaid Congestion Charges and penalties run by embassies in London was £49.4m and at the current rate of growth that figure will break the £50m barrier later this month.

Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon has said, “The amount in unpaid Congestion Charges and Penalty Charge Notices owed by embassies is now so large that it could pay for more than 260 new buses on London’s streets, or fund the significant expansion of the cycle hire scheme, or alternatively reduce fare rises.”

Or, as she didn’t say, £50m could pay for one Fernando Torres.

Caroline Pidgeon has also attacked the excuses embassies use for avoiding paying: “The Congestion Charge is exactly what its name suggests – it is a charge, not a tax. Embassies that claim that it is a tax are just clutching at poor excuses to justify their insulting behaviour”.

Diplomats around the world are exempt from paying local taxes to their host country under Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 save for taxes such as those which are included in the prices of goods.

The biggest bills have been run up by the American Embassy, where staff stopped paying the Congestion Charge in 2005 and have now run up a £5m backlog. Just under three quarters of embassies pay the Congestion Charge regularly, but the Americans are joined in their non-payment by Russian, Germany, Japan and Nigeria, all of whom owe over £2m, amongst others. However, in both Oslo and Singapore US diplomats do pay their equivalent of the Congestion Charge and the OECD has concluded that embassies should pay.