Outstanding National Non-domestic Rates Bills

Thursday 21st July 2016

(8 years, 4 months ago)

Written Statements
Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Boris Johnson Portrait The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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 protocol directorate of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to missions in 2016 led to the settlement of outstanding debts by a number of missions.

As at 27 June 2016, the total amount of outstanding NNDR payments, due before 31 December 2015, owed by foreign diplomatic missions as advised by the Valuation Office Agency is £907,976, an increase of 22% over the 2014 figure, as reported in the 2015 WMS (£743,858). However, £40,838 of this outstanding debt is owed by Syria— which is not currently represented in the UK and we have therefore been unable to pursue this debt. A further £87,020 is owed by Iran, the majority of which was accrued during its embassy’s closure between 2011 and 2015. The Iranian embassy has now reopened and the FCO will be requesting payment of what is owed. Four missions are responsible for just over 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

£100,762

Embassy of the Republic of the Sudan

£81,419

Sierra Leone High Commission

£62,478

Embassy of the Republic of Zimbabwe

£57,636

Uganda High Commission

£36,885

Embassy of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria

£35,257

High Commission for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

£30,154

Embassy of the Republic of Liberia

£27,170

Malaysian High Commission

£26,917

High Commission for the Republic of Zambia

£25,886

Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia

£22,924

Embassy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

£22,688

Kenya High Commission

£21,352

Embassy of the Republic of Albania

£21,258

High Commission for the Republic of Cameroon

£19,281

High Commission of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

£15,765

Embassy of Ukraine

£15,675

Embassy of the Republic of Angola

£12,719

Embassy of the Gambia

£12,210

Embassy of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire

£11,987



Figures for previous years are available in the Secretary for State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs’ written statement to the House on 16 July 2015, Official Report, column 43WS (HCWS133).

[HCWS100]