Angela Rayner has said she will ‘of course do the right thing and step down’ if she is found to have committed a crime as police investigate claims that she may have broken electoral law.
The deputy Labour leader said she was confident she had ‘followed the rules at all times’ after Conservative Party deputy chairman James Daly suggested she may have given false information about her main residence.
Ms Rayner faces pressure over claims she may have owed capital gains tax on property made from the sale of her home on Vicarage Road in Stockport in March 2015 – and that she may have broken electoral law by registering at the wrong address.
She says that the house was her main residence when she sold it for £127,500, which would exempt her from paying around £1,500 in tax on the £48,500 she made after buying the building for £79,000 in January 2007.
But after finding no evidence of wrongdoing in their initial probe, Greater Manchester Police this morning reversed its decision not to look into where the Ashton-under-Lyne MP was registered to vote, after an appeal by the Conservatives to take another look.
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner during the Labour Party local elections campaign launch at the Black Country & Marches Institute of Technology in Dudley, March 28. 2024
Ms Rayner’s house on Vicarage Road when it was for sale. Ms Rayner sold the house for £127,500 in March 2015, according to property website Zoopla
A general view of the home in Lowndes Lane, Stockport, Greater Manchester
In a statement on Friday, Ms Rayner said: ‘I’ve repeatedly said I would welcome the chance to sit down with the appropriate authorities, including the police and HMRC, to set out the facts and draw a line under this matter.
‘I am completely confident I’ve followed the rules at all times.
‘I have always said that integrity and accountability are important in politics. That’s why it’s important that this is urgently looked at, independently and without political interference.
‘I make no apologies for having held Conservative ministers to account in the past. Indeed, the public would rightly expect me to do so as a Deputy Leader of the Opposition.
‘We have seen the Tory Party use this playbook before – reporting political opponents to the police during election campaigns to distract from their record.
‘I will say as I did before – if I committed a criminal offence, I would of course do the right thing and step down. The British public deserves politicians who know the rules apply to them.
‘The questions raised relate to a time before I was an MP and I have set out my family’s circumstances and taken expert tax and legal advice. I look forward to setting out the facts with the relevant authorities at the earliest opportunity.’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer welcomed the police investigation into Ms Rayner’s council house sale and said he had ‘full confidence’ that she had not broken the rules.
His deputy has faced scrutiny about whether she paid the right amount of tax on the 2015 sale of her council house because of confusion over whether it was her principal residence.
Ms Rayner was registered at the house on Vicarage Road on the electoral role until her husband sold his property in 2016, as reported by The Guardian.
Her husband was listed at another address in Lowndes Lane, about a mile away, which had also been bought under the right-to-buy scheme.
Ms Rayner re-registered the births of their two sons at her husband’s address after marrying Mark Rayner in 2010, according to Lord Ashcroft’s unofficial biography.
Married couples who both own properties can only have one primary residence between them under tax law.
Ms Rayner insists she lived in the semi-detached former council house in Vicarage Road – paying council tax and bills – until weeks before her election as MP for Ashton-under-Lyne in May 2015, and never rented it out.
But neighbours have reportedly disputed her claim that she lived apart from her then husband.
The Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne later sold the property in March 2015, ahead of her election to parliament that May.
Sir Keir has previously said the Conservatives are ‘chasing a smear’ in raising questions about the deputy leader and people were more interested in ‘problems caused by this Government’.
The claims first emerged in Red Queen? The Unauthorised Biography of Angela Rayner by Lord Ashcroft, serialised in the Mail.
Angela Rayner with Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer. The confusion over Ms Rayner’s home address is significant because under electoral rules, voters are expected to register at their permanent home address
Ms Rayner posted on X, formerly Twitter, in February: ‘As with the majority of ordinary people who sell their own homes, I was not liable for capital gains tax because it was my home and the only one I owned.
‘My husband already owned his own home independently and I had an older child from a previous relationship. Our son was born just 23 weeks into my pregnancy and spent eight months in intensive care. He is legally blind.
‘We mutually decided to maintain our existing residences to reflect our circumstances. Every family is different but it worked for us and we brought up our boys in a caring environment, surrounded by love.
‘A wide network of friends and family were also there to support us, including my brother. He’d served in Iraq and was a dab hand at DIY.
‘For all the unhealthy interest taken in my family by Lord Ashcroft and his friends, there is no suggestion any rules have been broken. Just a constant stream of smears from the usual suspects.’
Upon their initial investigation, police found no evidence of any wrongdoing.
A Labour spokesperson also said: ‘Angela Rayner has set out her family’s circumstances and has taken expert tax and legal advice which confirms that no capital gains tax was payable on the sale of her home.’
Nonetheless, Tory MPs have continued to insist that the issue ‘is not being given the attention it surely warrants’.
James Daly, MP for Bury North, asked Greater Manchester Police to look into whether Ms Rayner breached electoral law over her living arrangements following her 2010 marriage.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps accused Ms Rayner of ‘double standards’ because in January 2022 she called for Boris Johnson to quit as prime minister amid a police investigation into whether he had breached lockdown rules while in No10.
He told reporters: ‘Angela Rayner herself has spent her political career calling people out for exactly the thing she seems to be doing now.
‘It’s not acceptable to ignore it and it’s not acceptable for Keir Starmer to say he won’t even read reports into it.
‘This is something which is a serious matter, it’s important that it’s looked into properly and I welcome the idea that the police are doing that.’
Greater Manchester Police confirmed it was looking into claims that the Labour deputy leader may have mispaid capital gains tax over the 2015 sale of a property in Manchester.
Angela Rayner speaking at the Labour Party deputy leadership hustings on the stage at SEC in Glasgow on February 15, 2020 in Glasgow, Scotland
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer today declined to say three times whether Ms Rayner should resign if police find that she did break the law.
In a stony-faced interview with broadcasters he said: ‘I am fully confident that Angela Rayner has not broken the rules.
‘She will cooperate with the investigation as you would expect and it is really a matter for the police.’
Meanwhile other senior Labour frontbenchers rallied around her. Former party leader Ed Miliband said she was an inspiration and ‘exactly the kind of person we need in politics’.
