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. John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, accused ministers of having “no grip on the MoD’s finances” and said the scale of waste was “significant and systemic”. None of its 36 projects were rated green – “on time and in budget” – according to official Whitehall assessments, he added. The overspends were taken from MoD and other official documents, and some date back to flawed procurement decisions during Labour’s 13 years in government, which ended in 2010. Recent problems highlighted include: 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. The MoD has faced repeated criticisms of its management of large contracts. MPs on the cross party public accounts committee said in November that the system of defence procurement was “broken” and they feared that overspends would eat up the £16.5bn extra in government money allocated last year. Current concerns centre on the introduction of the £5.5bn Ajax heavy armoured vehicle, which has been plagued by serious noise and vibration problems that its manufacturers are struggling to fix. Soldiers were put at risk of harm in testing, the defence procurement minister Jeremy Quin admitted last month. But problems with financial management at the MoD date back many years, including to Labour’s time in government. Delays and overspends during Labour’s time in office plagued the development of RAF Nimrod spy planes, cancelled by the Conservatives shortly after taking office in 2010. Waste on the programme is included in Labour’s dossier at a cost of £3.7bn, the largest single item identified. Also highlighted are £2.8bn of overspends relating to the development of the Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales aircraft carriers. The cost of building the Royal Navy’s biggest ever ships soared from an initial estimate of £3.9bn – when the project was commissioned under Labour in 2007 – to £6.4bn. Labour said it would commission the NAO to conduct an across-the-board audit of MoD waste, and make the department subject to a spending regime enforced by a newly created Office for Value for Money. “Reforming the department will not be easy, but this report takes a crucial first step,” Healey added. In response, the Ministry of Defence said it was “serious about investing in Defence modernisation” and said it was prepared to take “tough decisions to replace old equipment and halt programmes that no longer fit requirements” even if it meant writing off spending.