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A choice by the MoJ to agree to a 10-year lease for a prison where elevated levels of a toxic gas had been found is projected to cost the UK taxpayer in excess of £100 million, a government spending watchdog has found.

A Deal Signed ''Rashly'

The lease signed in 2022 to rent HMP Dartmoor was agreed "in a state of alarm" by high-ranking civil servants who were seeking to secure prison beds, the committee stated.

This medium-security prison, which housed many sex offenders, was shut down in 2024 after the radioactive gas levels as high as 10 times the recommended limit were recorded in parts of the facility. The authorities has since acknowledged it was aware that "elevated readings" of the gas were detected in 2020.

Radon, a invisible and scentless radioactive gas, is linked to about 1,100 lung cancer-related deaths in the UK annually, according to health security authorities.

Failure to Secure a 'Good Deal'

A findings issued by the committee said that officials from the prison service were unable to secure "a good deal" and executed the lease in 2022 prior to carrying out subsequent radon tests.

"Under the contract terms, the ministry cannot terminate the lease until at least December 2033. In total, the prison service is currently paying around £4 million per year for an uninhabitable prison. This covers rent, business rates and security costs," the report said.

"On top of this, the government must pay extra costs – around £68 million – on building upgrades to the Dartmoor site over the period of the lease," the report stated.

A Complete Failure ''At Every Level'

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

He stated: "We heard claims that the leasing of this uninhabitable building, understood for years by the prison service to be riddled with radon gas with all the implications that carried, was sensible, driven by the demand for prison places."

"Our committee rejects this justification entirely. Dartmoor seems to the committee [to be] a prime example of a government agency grasping at a fix, any solution, under intense pressure," he continued.

"Government must now answer to us on what it has learned from this catastrophic failure."

Evacuation and Transfer of Inmates

The move to shutter the jail, necessitating the transfer of 682 offenders, followed years of testing and measures to lower the radon levels. Staff at the prison began monitoring levels in 2010, but the remaining prisoners and staff were not evacuated until July 2024.

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

In a written answer in July last year, the MoJ stated: "Elevated radon readings were first identified at Dartmoor in 2020." Other records indicate that radon gas levels exceeding the safe limit were also found as far back as 2007.

Lawsuits and Continuing Investigation

More than 500 former inmates and prison officers are pursuing lawsuits against the state, claiming their wellbeing was put at risk.

An probe into radon levels at the prison begun by the Health and Safety Executive in 2023 is still in progress.

The head of the Prison Officers Association applauded the report. "It is disgraceful that such a catastrophe has not yielded sanctions for the senior officials that not only placed everyone within Dartmoor prison at danger but also wasted millions of pounds of tax revenue," he commented.

Defence of the Decision

Speaking to MPs in October, the MoJ's permanent secretary defended the choice to sign the 10-year Dartmoor lease in 2022.

"At the moment, the prison system was at risk of running out of prison capacity, and Dartmoor supplied over 600 places," she explained. "A pragmatic and practical decision was made in March, when all the information that we have now was not to hand, that it was required, given the issues the government were facing, to execute the lease and keep Dartmoor open."

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "This decision was made in 2022. This government took over a crisis in our prisons system, where prisons were on the brink of collapse, risking a complete collapse in public order."