The Public Accounts Committee has delivered a damning verdict on the Ministry of Justice after it emerged that millions of pounds of public money have been wasted on an empty, unsafe prison. The HMP Dartmoor lease scandal raises serious questions about accountability, royal profiteering, and the UK’s failing approach to punishment.
The Public Accounts Committee has sharply criticised the Ministry of Justice for a catalogue of poor decisions that led to a £4 million-a-year lease being signed for HMP Dartmoor, a prison that has stood empty for 18 months.
The lease was signed in March 2022 by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, despite officials knowing for at least two years that the site had dangerously high levels of radon gas. Subsequent testing revealed radon concentrations up to ten times higher than safe limits, making the prison unsafe for both prisoners and staff. The Ministry of Justice now faces legal action from prison officers and prisoners who say their health has been seriously affected, while remedial work to clear the radon drags on with no clear end in sight.
What makes this scandal even more troubling is where the money goes. HMP Dartmoor sits on land within the Duchy of Cornwall, and the landlord is Prince William, the second-richest royal. The £4 million annual rent flows directly to him, even though the prison has been unusable. This represents a needless waste of taxpayers’ money at a time when public services are under extreme pressure.
HMP Dartmoor normally houses around 600 inmates and employs 300 staff, contributing an estimated £30 million a year to the local economy. Princetown, the village where HMP Dartmoor is located, has expressed concern about the impact of the prison’s closure, but this cannot distract from the central failure: the lease should never have been signed. Claims that it was necessary because of a prison capacity crisis are a red herring. We cannot build our way out of this crisis.
“Bang them up and forget about them” has demonstrably failed. The UK has the highest rates of reoffending, self-harm and deaths in custody in Western Europe. Instead of pouring millions into unsafe buildings, we must invest in people: robust alternatives to custody, and pathways out of crime that tackle poverty, addiction, and—particularly for women—coercive control and domestic abuse.
The VIEW demands accountability. We call for a full refund of the £4 million a year already paid, and for Prince William to end the lease on HMP Dartmoor—a prison that will never be safe to use again.
News article by The View.