'Costly' Ministry of Justice Rental of Poisonous Radon Jail Expected to Cost Taxpayers More Than £100m

A choice by the MoJ to agree to a decade-long rental agreement for a prison where elevated levels of a poisonous gas had been found is projected to cost the UK taxpayer in excess of £100 million, a official spending watchdog has concluded.

A Deal Signed ''Rashly'

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 ensure prison beds, the panel said.

This category C prison, which housed many individuals convicted of sexual offences, was shut down in 2024 after radon levels as high as 10 times the recommended limit were found in parts of the facility. The authorities has since confirmed it was aware that "high readings" of the gas were detected in 2020.

Radon, a invisible and odourless radioactive gas, is responsible for about 1,100 lung cancer deaths in the UK annually, according to public health authorities.

Failure to Negotiate a 'Good Deal'

A findings published by the committee said that representatives from the prison service did not manage to negotiate "a good deal" and signed the lease in 2022 before conducting additional radon surveys.

"Under the terms of the deal, the ministry cannot end 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 encompasses lease payments, business rates and security costs," the report said.

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

A Complete Failure 'From Top to Bottom'

The committee's Conservative chair said the Ministry of Justice's handling of HMP Dartmoor as "a scandal, from top to bottom".

He stated: "We heard arguments that the leasing of this uninhabitable building, identified for years by the prison service to be choked with radon gas with all the health risks that involved, was reasonable, driven by the need for prison places."

"The panel rejects this excuse completely. Dartmoor seems to the committee [to be] a perfect example of a department seeking a solution, any solution, in a blind panic," he added.

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

Evacuation and Transfer of Prisoners

The move to close the jail, forcing the relocation of 682 prisoners, followed years of testing and attempts to mitigate the radon levels. Staff at the prison began checking levels in 2010, but the remaining inmates and staff were not relocated until July 2024.

Questions have since been asked about whether the prison service could have acted sooner.

In a official statement in July last year, the MoJ stated: "Raised radon readings were first identified at Dartmoor in 2020." Other reports indicate that radon gas levels exceeding the safe limit were also detected as far back as 2007.

Legal Claims and Continuing Probe

Over 500 former inmates and prison officers are bringing lawsuits against the state, claiming their health was put at risk.

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

The leader of the Prison Officers Association applauded the report. "It is disgraceful that such a debacle has not led to sanctions for the high-ranking decision makers that not only put everyone within Dartmoor prison at risk but also squandered millions of pounds of tax revenue," he said.

Defence of the Lease Agreement

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

"At that time, the prison system was at threat of running out of prison spaces, and Dartmoor supplied over 600 places," she said. "A reasonable and practical judgement was made in March, when the complete data that we have now was not available, that it was essential, given the problems the government were facing, to sign the lease and keep Dartmoor open."

A MoJ spokesperson said: "This decision was taken in 2022. This government took over a crisis in our prisons system, where prisons were on the verge of failure, threatening a total collapse in public order."