Lawmakers slammed Britain's Ministry of Defence on Thursday after it was revealed that between 2009 and 2011 it bought 1.5 billion pounds worth of equipment more than it used.

A report by a cross-party committee of MPs identified 3.4 billion pounds ($5.1 billion, 3.9 billion euros) worth of supplies which it said could be sold.

The report accused the department of "wasting significant amounts of public money" on accruing consumable supplies such as uniforms and ammunition which have not been used.

"It is particularly galling at a time when funding is tight and when one considers that the National Audit Office has been warning about these issues for over 20 years," said committee member Richard Bacon.

The report found that the department had concentrated only on meeting demand, and had no mechanism to avoid over-ordering.

The MoD is to introducing controls which it hopes will reduce spending on inventory by 500 million pounds a year by 2015.