Named: the embassies which owe £3.5m in traffic fines

They may live in opulent embassies and enjoy the privilege of chauffeur-driven cars and diplomatic passports, but when it comes to paying their parking fines or footing the bill for local rubbish collection, foreign emissaries are refusing to pay their way, on a grand scale.

Embassies have used diplomatic immunity to run up over £3.5m in unpaid fines, including thousands of outstanding parking tickets, figures released by the Foreign Office show.

Diplomats, including those representing the world's richest countries - among them Saudi Arabia - owe almost £1m in unpaid domestic rates and are refusing to pick up their share of the bill for local services such as street cleaning.

The scale of unpaid fines has infuriated the Foreign Office, which has written to embassies demanding payment.

Diplomats based in the United Kingdom have also clocked up millions of pounds in unpaid London congestion charge fines since the introduction of the environmental levy almost two years ago.

The worst non-payers include the United Arab Emirates, a wealthy Middle East state, whose diplomatic staff have almost 5,000 outstanding congestion charge penalties adding up to £452,650.

The United States embassy has almost 1,000 unpaid congestion charge fines and owes the London authorities £62,250. South Africa owes £122,590 in congestion charge tickets.

Last year, almost 5,000 parking and speeding tickets were not paid by diplomatic staff.

But, unlike most drivers who would face a visit from the bailiffs if they refused to pay their fines, diplomats can escape penalties because they are immune from prosecution.

"We have informed missions that failure to pay fines could result in there being in a list presented to Parliament. We also wrote to all missions owing more than £1,000 in fines urging them to settle their debts," said a Foreign Office spokesman.

Diplomats used their special status to run up around £400,000 in unpaid parking tickets and other "traffic-violation fines", the figures show. Saudi Arabia has 243 fines outstanding, worth £21,980, while German diplomats ran up 128 unpaid fines, worth £12,230 last year.

Some missions have made arrangements to clear their debts and, after prompting by the Foreign Office, foreign diplomats settled £63,650 in unpaid traffic fines last year.

TOP 10 OFFENDERS

Unpaid congestion charge fines

United Arab Emirates £452,650

Angola £392,750

Sudan £274,870

Nigeria £140,620

Tanzania £136,280

Sierra Leone £135,290

South Africa £122,590

Zimbabwe £96,390

Kenya £96,010

USA £62,250

Total: £1,909,700

Unpaid traffic fines

Kazakhstan £23,870

Egypt £22,200

Saudi Arabia £21,980

Georgia £14,560

China £13,350

Turkey £13,230

Germany £12,280

Russia £11,410

Libya £9,850

Nigeria £8,750

Total: £151,480