UK Home Office spent millions on ‘unusable’ rubber bullets

The British Home Office has spent millions of pounds on unsafe rubber bullet, which do not meet the UK safety standards, especially at a time when it is struggling to generate savings.

The spending report was revealed under a section titled "Fruitless payments" in the Home Office’s annual accounts for the year ending March 2012.

The report said: "A fruitless payment of £427,000 was made for baton rounds that passed testing in the country of manufacture but not in the UK.

"This meant they could not be used in the UK."

The Home Office has acquired plastic baton rounds from overseas, to enhance the capabilities of its police forces after the summer’s riots that took place in 2011, the report claimed.

The Labour shadow Policing minister David Hanson said: "The level of incompetence demonstrated in wasting taxpayers money on rubber bullets without thinking to check whether they meet UK safety standards is frankly breathtaking."

"Payments for which liability ought not to have been incurred or where the demand for the goods or services in question could have been cancelled in time to avoid liability," the report revealed.

A Home Office spokesman said that the unused bullets would be most likely deployed for training purposes, but the annual account makes no mention about the usage of the wasted order.