A parliamentary watchdog has reported that the cancellation of several government initiatives, including the Rwanda deportation plan and a proposed road tunnel beneath Stonehenge, resulted in £6.6 billion in wasted public funds last year. The Public Accounts Committee stated that this amount was written off by departments without delivering intended results or value to taxpayers. The cross-party group described the pattern of abandoning projects after substantial spending as a serious failure in fiscal responsibility. Labour MP Clive Betts, the committee’s deputy chair, called the losses a sign of complacency and noted that taxpayers would be understandably frustrated. Analysis of spending across 17 major departments, supported by the National Audit Office, identified the largest losses from asset write-offs, unrecovered debts, project cancellations, and fraud. The Ministry of Defence recorded the highest losses at £1.6 billion, largely due to asset retirements and policy shifts following the change in government. The Home Office reported £290 million lost from the scrapped Rwanda scheme, while the Department for Transport wrote off £472 million after halting eight road projects, including the Stonehenge tunnel. The committee also highlighted that outstanding compensation obligations reached £73.4 billion by the end of the financial year. It questioned whether value for money had been adequately assessed in the design of these schemes. Persistent fraud and errors, particularly in the Department for Work and Pensions where overpayments totalled £9.3 billion, were cited as another major factor. A Treasury spokesperson said the government would not tolerate waste and had ended certain projects to safeguard public finances, with a formal response to Parliament expected in due course.
