A NOW defunct arm of the government which bid for a contract to provide support to Saudi Arabia’s notorious prison system was a waste of taxpayers’ money and morally dubious, MPs said yesterday.

Just Solutions International (JSi), the commercial arm of the National Offender Management Service, was shut down last year by Justice Secretary Michael Gove amid a bitter political row over the contract to train Saudi prison staff.

As late as last September, the government said it planned to press ahead with the Saudi prisons bid, despite long-standing concerns over the use of torture and a surge in the number of executions in the kingdom.