Labour says MoD 'failing taxpayers' by wasting £13bn

The Labour Party has accused the Ministry of Defence of ‘wasting’ £13 billion of taxpayers' money since 2010, including cancelled contracts and programmes that went over budget.

Using independently-collated data to identify 67 cases of ‘waste’, which it defines as when costs could have been reasonably avoided or reduced by better management, Labour said its audit of the department's finances showed ministers were ‘failing British troops and British taxpayers’.

The MoD has an annual budget of more than £40 billion a year - with nearly half that money spent on equipment. It manages a fifth of all the government's major projects. However, so far none of its 36 major projects is rated green - defined as the project being on time and within the original budget.

Labour’s analysis, which covers from 2010, said that the ‘wasted’ £13 billion included £4.8 billion was from cancelled contracts and £5.6 billion of overspending on existing projects. Many of the examples over the years have already been highlighted by the National Audit Office and the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

This includes an extra £1 billion on building a new nuclear warhead manufacturing facility at Burghfield near Reading, which is already 76 months behind schedule, as well as the RAF's fleet of new Protector drones, which is already £325 million over budget and 28 months late.

Cancelled projects have also cost the MoD millions of pounds. They include the loss of £595 million after it scrapped plans to upgrade the Warrior armoured vehicle.