Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 11
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follow-up: Autumn 2025
Published 7 Jan 2026
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Ministry of Justice follow-up: Autumn 2025 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We asked MoJ at what point it would make a judgement on whether continuing the works represented the best value for money. MoJ told us that to date it has spent £1.2 million on radon mitigation works, but that it is not currently spending any money on the site until it decides whether to reoccupy the prison. It explained that it cannot make a decision on this until work the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is doing to look at workplace radon regulations is complete. It expects this work to conclude in December 2025.22 It explained that it will then look at the most sensible decision to make in terms of the site. It acknowledged that this could include giving notice on the lease.23 This should include trying to negotiate an earlier exit date than 2033. We urged MoJ and HMPPS to factor in the possibility that there may be asbestos in the roof of the prison into its decision.24 There must be total transparency on all these matters as soon as possible. 21 Letter from Ministry of Justice concerning HMP Dartmoor, 2 October 2025 22 Letter from the Ministry of Justice, 6 November 2025 23 Qq 16, 20 24 Q 24 10 2 Legal aid recommendations and cyberattack Understanding access to legal aid
From: Public Accounts Committee, 59th Report - Ministry of Justice follow-up: Autumn 2025 (HC 1240), 7 January 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 1 April 2026 (deadline 7 March 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the recommendations in the response, reporting some as implemented and giving target dates for others.
- On Dartmoor, HMPPS has reviewed its handling of the lease negotiations and identified areas of learning. MoJ and HMPPS will write to the Committee "once the proposed approach to remediating Dartmoor has been decided", with a target date of June 2026.
- On access to legal aid for the digitally excluded, an Ipsos civil demand feasibility study will report by the end of March 2026. The department will report back to the Committee on progress in October 2026.
- On market sustainability, the department will "explore options to routinely monitor the profitability of legal aid firms" and update the Committee in October 2026. Any future policy decisions will be "in the context of the department's spending review settlement".
- On the cyberattack, MoJ and LAA say lessons have already been shared across government. MoJ states that it "has allocated funding to the transformation of LAA systems over the 2026-2029 period".