59th Report - Ministry of Justice follow-up: Autumn 2025

Despite closing the prison in August 2024, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HMPPS still do not have clear plans for the future of Dartmoor. MoJ previously assured us that its aim was to remediate HMP Dartmoor and bring it … Read more Despite closing the prison in August 2024, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HMPPS still do not have clear plans for the future of Dartmoor. MoJ previously assured us that its aim was to remediate HMP Dartmoor and bring it back into safe use. However, over a year since HMPPS closed the prison, MoJ and HMPPS still do not have clear plans for how and when they will do this, and are less certain that reopening the site will represent the best value for money. HMPPS is waiting for the outcome of a Health and Safety Executive review of current workplace regulations on radon 3 before it assesses what work it would need to do to the site and by when. Once the review is complete, MoJ and HMPPS plan to base their decision about whether or not to reopen on whether continuing with the works represents the best value for money for taxpayers. recommendation Once it has decided on its proposed approach to remediating the Dartmoor site, the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service should write to the Committee and set out in detail: • its assessment of any proposed works against the Accounting Officer tests of regularity, propriety, feasibility and value for money; • its estimate of when the prison will be fit for use and how much the remediation will cost. • that it will continue to assess whether best value for money is served by continuing to spend money on an unoccupied prison or try to negotiate an early exit from the lease by carrying out a full commercial negotiation with proper professional advice. Show less

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For a decade, this Committee and its predecessors have urged MoJ to get a better understanding of the wider costs of its legal aid reforms. A 2015 report noted the lack of analysis MoJ had undertaken of the wider impacts … Read more For a decade, this Committee and its predecessors have urged MoJ to get a better understanding of the wider costs of its legal aid reforms. A 2015 report noted the lack of analysis MoJ had undertaken of the wider impacts of the reforms on itself and other government departments and stressed that it needed to do more.33 In its 2024 report, the previous Committee noted that while MoJ acknowledged that the removal of most early legal advice via its reforms was likely to have led to additional costs to the public sector, its progress in measuring the scale of these costs 29 Qq 33, 59 30 Q 59 31 Letter from the Ministry of Justice, 6 November 2025 32 Public Law Project (MOJ0004) 33 Committee of Public Accounts, Implementing reforms to civil legal aid, Thirty-sixth Report of Session 2014–15, HC 808, 4 February 2015 12 was disappointing. The Committee acknowledged that it would not be possible to get a precise figure on these costs, but stressed the need for MoJ to take further action to better understand these costs.34 Show less

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We asked MoJ what work it had done to better understand the effects of its legal aid reforms on local authorities and their legal advice services. MoJ said that it has surveyed local authorities to understand where they were providing … Read more We asked MoJ what work it had done to better understand the effects of its legal aid reforms on local authorities and their legal advice services. MoJ said that it has surveyed local authorities to understand where they were providing additional legal advice and why, but it told us that it did not have a high response rate to the survey. It explained that while the response rate was low, responses showed that there may be several reasons for local authorities to be providing advice, including that the issue or individual’s circumstances may be outside the scope of legal aid. It also stressed that it had done a lot of work with MHCLG, particularly around the Renters’ Rights Bill, which may create more legal disputes, and how to ensure that provision of legal aid is in the right places to meet this demand. We asked MoJ whether these conversations had changed anything for local government. However, in response it only stated that it had rolled out a new pathfinder pilot in family courts which it said should help to reduce burdens on local government as a specialist worker will point families to legal advice that it now funds.37 34 HC Committee of Public Accounts, Value for money from legal aid, Thirty-Third Report of Session 2023-24, HC 481, 20 May 2024. 35 Law Society of England and Wales (MOJ0002): Public Law Project (MOJ0004) 36 HMT, Treasury Minutes, 5 September 2024 37 Qq 37-41 13 Show less

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We took evidence from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) to follow up on our recent scrutiny of several topics. This included HMPPS’s management of the lease renewal at HMP Dartmoor, MoJ and LAA’s response to the previous Committee’s …

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HMPPS acknowledged that it would have been helpful to have more information on the density of radon at the Dartmoor site prior to the lease negotiations.11 However, it bizarrely maintained that signing the lease without undertaking a recent survey was sensible, given the prison capacity crisis at the time. It …

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Under the terms agreed HMPPS cannot terminate the new lease until after December 2033. The cost of the lease is £1.5 million a year, a slight increase on the £1.44 million it was paying when the lease expired in December 2023.14 We asked HMPPS what the total costs of keeping …

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Given their knowledge that radon had previously been detected at the site, we asked MoJ and HMPPS why they had not negotiated an earlier exit term, or provisions to change the terms if radon levels were to increase so that the prison became partially or wholly unusable. MoJ stated that …

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In our January 2025 session on prison estate capacity, MoJ stressed that it aimed to remediate HMP Dartmoor and bring it back into use if it could find a technical solution to radon issues at the site.19 MoJ reiterated that this remains its ambition as it does not want to …

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We asked LAA why it had taken so long to detect the attack and to then take systems offline.48 LAA explained that the risk of a cyberattack on its systems had been rated as extremely high on MoJ’s risk registers since 2021. It told us that MoJ had subsequently provided …

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LAA acknowledged that contingency measures it put in place to keep the legal aid system going placed additional burdens on providers, and that there are several lessons to be learned from the attack. This included, ensuring senior leaders understand risks in systems, ensuring longer term business continuity plans are in …

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