Complacency at the heart of Whitehall is condemned as fraud, write-offs and the cancellation of the Rwanda scheme push up losses
There is outcry at the billions wasted by Government departments (Image: PA)
Sir Keir Starmer’s Government has been blasted for delivering “egregiously poor value for public money” by wasting £6.6billion of taxpayers’ cash in a single financial year. There is dismay that the cancellation of the plan to send migrants to Rwanda resulted in a loss of £290million, and the axing of road schemes saw £472million squandered. The Ministry of Defence racked up a £1.6billion loss in 2024-25 through cancelled projects.
Fraud, debts and write-offs have also pushed up the losses to the taxpayer. Clive Betts, the deputy chairman of Westminster’s public accounts committee, said £6.6billion was “simply boiled off into the atmosphere as a loss”. He said: “Those who work hard to pay their dues should be rightly aggravated by this figure.”
Mr Betts said that at “a time of such straitened financial circumstances for so many, we should never, ever be satisfied with time or money wasted at no benefit to the public”.
He added: “Above all, we must reject the argument that high levels of fraud and waste are simply the cost of doing business in the public sector. They are not – they are the cost of complacency.”
In addition to the £6.6billion written-off, it found special payments outside departments’ “normal activities” totalled £293million. The MPs note this may be evidence of a failure to “exercise proper control or oversight on spending”.
Shadow Chancellor, Sir Mel Stride said: “At a time when families are facing rising costs and higher bills, Labour are throwing billions of pounds of their tax money down the drain. Among other shocking failures, hundreds of millions have been lost because Labour ditched the Conservatives‘ Rwanda plan, and unsurprisingly, illegal arrivals have gone up. It’s a lose-lose for the taxpayer. The Conservatives will restore value for money in Government – including by reducing the size of the civil service, scaling back foreign aid and cutting the benefits bill to get Britain working again.”
Then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman in Rwanda preparing for the ditched scheme (Image: PA)
The MPs found the money the Government estimates it owes through compensation schemes hit £73.4billion by the end of 2024-25 – up £11.8 billion increase on the previous year.
William Yarwood of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Taxpayers will be livid that £6.6billion was wasted in a single year through cancelled projects, fraud and government mismanagement. From Rwanda to scrapped road schemes, this report exposes a culture in Whitehall that treats taxpayers’ money with astonishing carelessness. Ministers must crack down on waste and start treating taxpayers’ money with the respect it deserves.”