Sir Keir Starmer's Government has been accused of delivering “egregiously poor value for public money” after wasting £6.6 billion of taxpayers' cash in a single financial year. The losses include £290 million from cancelling the Rwanda migrant plan, £472 million from scrapped road schemes, and £1.6 billion from Ministry of Defence cancelled projects.
Clive Betts, deputy chairman of the public accounts committee, said the sum was “simply boiled off into the atmosphere as a loss” and that hardworking taxpayers should be “rightly aggravated”. He added that at a time of “straitened financial circumstances”, the public should never accept wasted money, and rejected the argument that high fraud and waste are merely the cost of doing business in the public sector.
The report also found special payments outside normal departmental activities totalled £293 million, which MPs said may indicate a failure of “proper control or oversight”. Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride said Labour was throwing billions down the drain, citing the Rwanda plan cancellation and rising illegal arrivals. He pledged that Conservatives would restore value for money by reducing the civil service, scaling back foreign aid, and cutting the benefits bill.
Compensation schemes owed by the Government hit £73.4 billion by end of 2024-25, up £11.8 billion from the previous year. William Yarwood of the TaxPayers' Alliance said taxpayers would be “livid” at the waste, calling it a “culture in Whitehall that treats taxpayers’ money with astonishing carelessness”.
