A decision by the MoJ to enter into a 10-year rental agreement for a prison where elevated levels of a poisonous gas had been identified is estimated to cost more than £100 million, a government spending oversight committee has determined.
An Agreement Signed ''Under Duress'
The lease signed in 2022 to rent HMP Dartmoor was finalised "in a state of alarm" by high-ranking civil servants who were aiming to guarantee prison places, the panel reported.
This medium-security prison, which accommodated many sex offenders, was shut down in 2024 after radon levels as high as 10 times the recommended limit were found in parts of the facility. The government has since confirmed it was cognisant that "high readings" of the gas were detected in 2020.
Radon, a colourless and odourless naturally occurring gas, is linked to about 1,100 lung cancer deaths in the UK every year, according to health security agencies.
Oversight to Secure a 'Good Deal'
A analysis published by the committee concluded that civil servants from the prison service did not manage to secure "a good deal" and agreed to the lease in 2022 prior to performing subsequent radon tests.
"Under the lease agreement, the ministry cannot terminate the lease until at least December 2033. In total, the prison service is currently shelling out around £4 million per year for an uninhabitable prison. This covers rent, business rates and security costs," the report detailed.
"Furthermore, the government must pay further costs – around £68 million – on structural works to the Dartmoor site over the duration of the lease," the report continued.
A Complete Failure ''At Every Level'
The committee's Conservative chair described the Ministry of Justice's stewardship of HMP Dartmoor as "a complete failure, from top to bottom".
He commented: "We heard assertions that the leasing of this uninhabitable building, understood for years by the prison service to be choked with radon gas with all the health risks that involved, was prudent, driven by the requirement for prison places."
"Our committee rejects this excuse completely. Dartmoor appears to the committee [to be] a perfect example of a government agency grasping at a solution, any solution, in a state of crisis," he continued.
"Officials must now answer to us on what it has understood from this catastrophic failure."
Evacuation and Relocation of Prisoners
The choice to evacuate the jail, forcing the relocation of 682 prisoners, followed years of monitoring and efforts to mitigate the radon levels. Prison officers at the prison began monitoring levels in 2010, but the remaining prisoners and staff were not evacuated until July 2024.
Concerns have since been raised about whether the prison service could have taken action earlier.
In a official statement in July last year, the MoJ said: "Raised radon readings were first found at Dartmoor in 2020." Other reports show that radon gas levels exceeding the safe limit were also detected as far back as 2007.
Lawsuits and Continuing Investigation
Over 500 former inmates and prison officers are filing legal claims against the state, alleging their health was endangered.
An investigation into radon levels at the prison initiated by the Health and Safety Executive in 2023 is still ongoing.
The leader of the Prison Officers Association welcomed the committee's findings. "It is abhorrent that such a failure has not yielded consequences for the high-ranking decision makers that not only put everyone within Dartmoor prison at danger but also wasted millions of pounds of tax revenue," he commented.
Defence of the Lease Agreement
Speaking to MPs in October, the MoJ's top civil servant justified the choice to enter into the 10-year Dartmoor lease in 2022.
"At that time, the prison system was at threat of running out of prison places, and Dartmoor supplied over 600 places," she explained. "A reasonable and practical decision was taken in March, when all the information that we have now was not known, that it was essential, given the crises the government were dealing with, to execute the lease and keep Dartmoor open."
A MoJ representative said: "This decision was taken in 2022. This government inherited a critical situation in our prisons system, where prisons were on the brink of failure, threatening a complete collapse in public order."
