{"value":{"id":390539,"memberId":105,"member":null,"memberRole":"The Secretary for State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs","uin":"HCWS133","dateMade":"2015-07-16T00:00:00","answeringBodyId":16,"answeringBodyName":"Foreign and Commonwealth Office","title":"Diplomatic Missions and International Organisations with an outstanding National Non-Domestic Rates Bill over £10,000: as at 31 December 2014","text":"

The majority of diplomatic missions in the United Kingdom pay the National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) due from them. Diplomatic missions are obliged to pay only 6% of the total NNDR value of their offices. This represents payment for specific services received such as street cleaning and street lighting.

Representations by the Protocol Directorate of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to missions in 2015 led to the settlement of outstanding debts by a number of missions.

As at 14 July 2015, the total amount of outstanding NNDR payments, due before 31 December 2014, owed by foreign diplomatic missions as advised by the Valuation Office Agency is £743,858, an increase of 2.5% over the 2013 figure, as reported in the 2014 WMS (£726,076). However, £99,683 of this outstanding debt is owed by Iran – which is in the process of reopening its embassy in the UK, and Syria – which is not currently represented in the UK. We have therefore been unable to pursue these debts. Three missions are responsible for just under a third of the remainder. We shall continue to urge those with NNDR debt to pay their dues.

Missions listed below owed over £10,000 in respect of NNDR.

High Commission for the People’s Republic of Bangladesh

£98,963

Sierra Leone High Commission

£59,949

Embassy of the Republic of the Sudan

£53,466

Embassy of the Republic of Zimbabwe

£35,599

Uganda High Commission

£29,549

Embassy of the Republic of Liberia

£24,892

Embassy of the Republic of Iraq

£17,755

Embassy of the State of Qatar

£18,883

Embassy of Ukraine

£18,720

Embassy of the Republic of Albania

£18,374

Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines

£16,691

Embassy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

£16,772

Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt

£14,676

Ghana High Commission

£14,170

High Commission for the Republic of Cameroon

£13,483

Embassy of the United Arab Emirates

£13,447

High Commission for the Republic of Zambia

£12,797

Embassy of the Republic of Angola

£12,435

Kenya High Commission

£10,555

Figures for previous years are available in the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs’ written statement to the House on 15 July 2014, Official Report, column 55WS.

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