Angela Rayner says she will step down if found to have committed crime

 

Angela Rayner says she will step down if found to have committed crime

 

Deputy Labour leader has faced questions over sale of former council house before she became MP

 

Aletha Adu Political correspondent

Fri 12 Apr 2024 18.26 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/12/police-to-investigate-angela-rayner-over-residency-declaration

 

Angela Rayner has pledged to step down as deputy leader of the Labour party if a police investigation finds she has committed a crime, amid allegations of breaching electoral law and avoiding capital gains tax.

 

Greater Manchester police (GMP) said on Friday that they were investigating the sale of her council house in March 2015, after she was accused of giving false information about where she was living for the first five years of her marriage before she was elected as an MP in May 2015.

 

She also faces calls to publish the legal and tax advice she has received to prove she does not owe capital gains tax (CGT) of up to £1,500 on the profits of the sale of her council house in March 2015. However, Rayner has said she would only release the “personal” information if the Conservatives calling for her to do so published theirs.

 

She 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’s leader, Keir Starmer, on Friday declined three times to say if Rayner would have to resign as deputy if she was found to have broken the law. He told ITV News the police investigation “will allow a line to be drawn in relation to this matter”.

 

Questions on Rayner’s living arrangements began to surface in February, prompted by claims made in the former deputy Tory chair Michael Ashcroft’s unofficial biography of her. It was suggested that she did not properly declare her main residence.

 

GMP initially said Rayner would not face an investigation. But they reviewed their decision after the deputy chair of the Conservative party, James Daly, complained about the force’s handling of the issue at the end of March.

 

In a statement on Friday morning, a GMP spokesperson said: “We’re investigating whether any offences have been committed. This follows a reassessment of the information provided to us by Mr Daly.”

 

Rayner bought her council house on Vicarage Road, Stockport, in 2007 for £79,000 with a 25% discount under the right-to-buy scheme.

 

Government guidance says a tenant can apply to buy their council home through the right-to-buy scheme if it is their “only or main home”.

 

Mark Rayner, now her ex-husband, had a property of his own about a mile away. They decided to keep their separate properties after their son was born prematurely in 2008, as Rayner said she needed a lot of support from a wide network of friends and family during this period, a decision that was maintained even after their marriage in 2010.

 

For the eight years that Rayner owned her Stockport home, she was registered on the electoral roll as living there and insists it was her “principal property”, while her partner lived at his home.

 

However, neighbours at the two properties have rejected her claims that she lived apart from her husband for the first five years of their marriage, with her brother living at her house from around 2012, according to reports. Daly has made GMP aware of these claims.

 

Ashcroft’s biography claims that in 2010, Rayner re-registered the births of the two sons she had with her husband to his house. It is unclear which address was on their birth certificates previously.

 

Under electoral rules, voters are required to register at their permanent address and could face penalties for providing false information.

 

In March 2015, Rayner sold her home for £127,500, making a profit of £48,500. At this point she was registered at this address on the electoral roll, until her husband sold his home in 2016.

 

Tax experts have said she could have gained tax relief if she and her husband nominated her home as their main residence, but it would have required Mark to pay CGT on any profits from his home when it was sold in 2016, or a lot of building work to have been done on her property.

 

Labour says it is confident Rayner has complied with the rules. Starmer told ITV that Rayner had “given answers on the issue many, many times over, she’s clearly said she’ll cooperate with the police” but declined to say if she should resign from the shadow cabinet if she was found to have broken the law.

 

He previously accused the Conservatives of “chasing a smear” in raising questions around Rayner’s living arrangements. In the story’s infancy, a number of Labour insiders deemed the row as a “weakened Tory Beergate attack”, referring to Conservative party criticism of Starmer in 2022.

 

The defence secretary, Grant Shapps, accused Rayner of “double standards” and welcomed the launch of a police investigation into the sale of her council house.

 

He said: “I think the double standards have been extraordinary, 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.”

 

A Labour spokesperson said: “Angela welcomes the chance to set out the facts with the police. We remain completely confident that Angela has complied with the rules at all times and it’s now appropriate to let the police do its work.”

 

Senior Labour figures have rallied around Rayner, including Sadiq Khan, Ed Miliband and Rachel Reeves, saying they were “fully confident” and “absolutely 100%” behind her.