Experimental results are presented on the production of runaway electrons as a function of wall cleanliness in the TORTUS tokamak. When the walls are clean, the production rate decreases as the filling pressure increases. When the walls are contaminated by oxygen, the production rate can increase when the filling pressure is increased, owing to the production of water vapour during tokamak discharges. These results resolve the differences reported in the literature on the production of runaways as a function of filling pressure. It is also observed that the runaway electron instability seen in other devices is suppressed when the walls are discharge-cleaned.