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A decision by the Ministry of Justice to enter into a decade-long lease for a prison where high levels of a toxic gas had been identified is estimated to cost in excess of £100 million, a parliamentary spending oversight committee has concluded.

A Deal Signed 'In a Blind Panic'

The 2022 deal to lease HMP Dartmoor was agreed "in a blind panic" by senior officials who were looking to secure prison capacity, the watchdog said.

This medium-security prison, which housed many individuals convicted of sexual offences, was closed in 2024 after radon levels as high as 10 times the acceptable limit were measured in certain locations. The government has since acknowledged it was cognisant that "raised readings" of the gas were detected in 2020.

Radon, a colourless and scentless naturally occurring gas, is responsible for about 1,100 lung cancer deaths in the UK every year, according to health security agencies.

Failure to Secure a 'Good Deal'

A report released by the committee stated that representatives from the prison service failed to secure "a good deal" and executed the lease in 2022 before carrying out further radon tests.

"Under the contract terms, the department cannot exit the lease until at least December 2033. In total, the prison service is currently shelling out around £4 million per year for an empty prison. This covers lease payments, business rates and security costs," the report detailed.

"On top of this, the taxpayer must pay additional costs – around £68 million – on fabric improvements to the Dartmoor site over the term of the lease," the report stated.

An Absolute Disgrace ''At Every Level'

The committee's Conservative chair said the MoJ's handling of HMP Dartmoor as "a complete failure, from top to bottom".

He commented: "We heard assertions that the rental of this unusable building, understood for years by the prison service to be choked with radon gas with all the dangers that carried, was prudent, driven by the demand for prison places."

"The panel dismisses this rationale outright. Dartmoor appears to the committee [to be] a prime example of a government agency grasping at a answer, any solution, under intense pressure," he said.

"The authorities must now answer to us on what it has learned from this costly mistake."

Evacuation and Transfer of Inmates

The choice to shutter the jail, leading to the relocation of 682 prisoners, followed years of observation and attempts to mitigate the radon levels. Prison officers at the prison began measuring levels in 2010, but the last prisoners and staff were not relocated until July 2024.

Concerns have since been raised about whether the prison service could have acted sooner.

In a parliamentary response in July last year, the MoJ confirmed: "Elevated radon readings were first identified at Dartmoor in 2020." Other information show that radon gas levels higher than the safe limit were also recorded as far back as 2007.

Legal Claims and Ongoing Probe

Over 500 former inmates and prison officers are filing compensation claims against the state, arguing their safety was compromised.

An investigation into radon levels at the prison begun by the workplace safety regulator in 2023 remains in progress.

The national chair of the Prison Officers Association applauded the committee's findings. "It is abhorrent that such a failure has not resulted in consequences for the senior individuals that not only placed everyone within Dartmoor prison at risk but also squandered millions of pounds of tax revenue," he said.

Defence of the Decision

Testifying to MPs in October, the MoJ's top civil servant defended the decision to enter into the 10-year Dartmoor lease in 2022.

"Then, the prison system was at risk of facing a shortage of prison places, and Dartmoor supplied over 600 places," she said. "A sensible and pragmatic judgement was made in March, when the complete data that we have now was not available, that it was necessary, given the crises the government were facing, to execute the lease and keep Dartmoor open."

A MoJ representative commented: "This action was taken in 2022. This government took over a critical situation in our prisons system, where prisons were on the verge of failure, risking a total collapse in public order."