Labour publishes document highlighting failed procurement projects, overspends and other administrative errors
Labour has accused the Ministry of Defence of wasting £13bn of taxpayers money since the Conservatives came to power on failed procurement projects, overspends and other administrative errors.
The opposition published a 16-page dossier, which it said highlighted a string of examples of financial mismanagement, including £4bn of waste since 2019, the year the current defence secretary, Ben Wallace, was appointed.
A £1bn overspend relating to the building of a new nuclear warhead manufacturing site at the state-owned Atomic Weapons Establishment in Burghfield near Reading. The National Audit Office, the government watchdog, warned in a 2020 report that the project was delayed by more than six years due to poor project management.
Delays in the procurement of three additional Astute class nuclear-powered attack submarines, costing just over £1bn, which are intended to take the total fleet to seven by 2026.
*A cost of £595m incurred for no military benefit when the planned upgrade to the Warrior armoured vehicle, which was started in 2011, was scrapped in last spring’s defence review. By that stage, the programme, described as an “abject failure” by the Commons defence committee, was running seven years late.
