Labour is spending £4million of taxpayers' on an empty prison choked with radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer, it has been revealed. HMP Dartmoor has been standing empty for 18 months after dangerous radon gas forced the evacuation of more than 600 prisoners in July 2024.

But despite the Victorian jail being completely unusable, the Government has signed up to an eye-watering £100million contract that doesn't end until 2033. The shocking waste emerged in a damning parliamentary report which revealed ministers are paying £4million a year to lease a prison that cannot hold a single inmate. On top of the crippling annual payments, taxpayers are also on the hook for £68million in "fabric improvements" to the contaminated building over the same period.

MPs have condemned the scandal as "an absolute disgrace" and a "catastrophic failure" that represents a "needless waste of taxpayers' money." Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Conservative MP, blasted the Ministry of Justice's handling of HMP Dartmoor as "an absolute disgrace, from top to bottom."

He said: "We heard claims that the leasing of this unusable building, known for years by HMPPS to be choked with radon gas with all the health risks that entailed, was sensible, driven by the need for prison places. Our committee rejects this excuse outright. Dartmoor appears to the committee [to be] a perfect example of a department reaching for a solution, any solution, in a blind panic and under pressure."

He added that the "government must now respond to us on what it has learned from this catastrophic failure."

Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer when inhaled over extended periods, making it impossible to safely house prisoners in the building.

The Prison Service was aware that Dartmoor was contaminated with the cancer-causing gas according to the Guardian, yet still committed taxpayers to a decade-long deal worth £4million annually until 2033, with an additional £68million earmarked for improvements to the jail over the same period.

When the full scale of the danger became clear in July 2024, all 640 inmates had to be urgently relocated to other jails, leaving the Victorian prison completely abandoned. Now Labour ministers find themselves saddled with the toxic deal, forking out millions every year for a building that sits empty and unusable.

The Ministry of Justice has attempted to defend the decision, arguing that signing the lease was taken "when prisons were on the brink of collapse, threatening a total collapse in law and order."

A MoJ spokesperson said: "This government inherited a crisis in our prisons system, where prisons were on the brink of collapse, threatening a total collapse in law and order.

"This government is addressing the prisons crisis through building 14,000 new prison places, and the Sentencing Bill which will deliver punishment that works."

But in October last year, the department's permanent secretary Jo Farrar defended the move, telling MPs the decision to renew the lease on a prison that cannot house prisoners was "a sensible and pragmatic decision."

That claim has been torn apart by the parliamentary report, which slammed the deal as a "needless waste of taxpayers' money" and demanded the Prison Service "set out what it has learned from the failures of its decision making" and "ensure that any future contracts deliver value for money."