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A choice by the MoJ to sign a 10-year lease for a prison where elevated levels of a toxic gas had been detected is projected to burden the public purse over £100 million, a official spending oversight committee has found.

An Agreement Signed ''Rashly'

The lease signed in 2022 to rent HMP Dartmoor was finalised "in a blind panic" by senior civil servants who were seeking to secure prison capacity, the committee stated.

This category C prison, which held many individuals convicted of sexual offences, was closed in 2024 after the radioactive gas levels as high as 10 times the safe limit were recorded in parts of the facility. The government has since admitted it was aware that "elevated readings" of the gas were discovered in 2020.

Radon, a colourless and scentless radioactive gas, is causes about 1,100 lung cancer deaths in the UK every year, according to health security authorities.

Oversight to Negotiate a 'Good Deal'

A report issued by the committee said that officials from the prison service did not manage to negotiate "a good deal" and agreed to the lease in 2022 prior to conducting subsequent radon surveys.

"Under the terms of the deal, the ministry cannot end the lease until at least December 2033. Overall, the prison service is currently paying around £4 million per year for an uninhabitable prison. This encompasses lease payments, business rates and security costs," the report noted.

"Furthermore, the taxpayer must pay further costs – around £68 million – on structural works to the Dartmoor site over the term of the lease," the report continued.

An Absolute Disgrace 'From Top to Bottom'

The committee's Tory chair described the Ministry of Justice's handling of HMP Dartmoor as "a complete failure, from top to bottom".

He remarked: "We heard arguments that the rental of this uninhabitable building, identified for years by the prison service to be contaminated by radon gas with all the dangers that carried, was prudent, driven by the demand for prison places."

"The panel rejects this excuse entirely. Dartmoor appears to the committee [to be] a perfect example of a department reaching for a solution, any solution, under intense pressure," he added.

"Government must now reply to us on what it has understood from this disastrous episode."

Evacuation and Relocation of Inmates

The choice to shutter the jail, necessitating the relocation of 682 offenders, followed years of testing and attempts to lower the radon levels. Staff at the prison began measuring levels in 2010, but the remaining prisoners and staff were not moved out until July 2024.

Concerns have since been asked about whether the prison service could have taken action earlier.

In a official statement in July last year, the MoJ confirmed: "High radon readings were first detected at Dartmoor in 2020." Other records suggest that radon gas levels higher than the safe limit were also detected as far back as 2007.

Legal Claims and Ongoing Probe

More than 500 former prisoners and prison officers are filing legal claims against the government, arguing their safety was endangered.

An inquiry into radon levels at the prison launched by the workplace safety regulator in 2023 is still in progress.

The head of the Prison Officers Association applauded the committee's findings. "It is abhorrent that such a catastrophe has not resulted in consequences for the high-ranking individuals that not only placed everyone within Dartmoor prison at danger but also wasted millions of pounds of tax revenue," he stated.

Justification of the Decision

Testifying to MPs in October, the MoJ's senior official defended the decision to sign the 10-year Dartmoor lease in 2022.

"At the moment, the prison system was at threat of facing a shortage of prison places, and Dartmoor offered over 600 places," she explained. "A sensible and practical decision was made in March, when the full picture that we have now was not to hand, that it was necessary, given the issues the government were facing, to execute the lease and keep Dartmoor open."

A MoJ representative said: "This decision was taken in 2022. This government took over a critical situation in our prisons system, where prisons were on the verge of collapse, threatening a total collapse in law and order."