Lammy says ‘many families’ live in two homes as Rayner row rolls on

‘The photos I saw reflect ... the advice Angela took in terms of her tax affairs from accountants and lawyers’

‘Why do we focus on her and say that she should be the exception? She hasn’t broken any rules.’

THE shadow foreign secretary has insisted “many families” live in two properties after claims Angela Rayner called a house she denied living in “home”.

David Lammy said the tax row surrounding the Labour deputy leader was “not a story”, after police said they are revisiting if Ms Rayner broke electoral law over the sale of her council house in 2015. The issue is the amount of tax she should have paid and if she should have been liable for capital gains tax based on her primary residence at the time.

Fresh questions have emerged after The Mail on Sunday unearthed dozens of social media posts showing Ms Rayner with her children and cats at her husband’s house, where she has said she did not live, during the period in question, with one captioned “just got home”.

Asked about the row, Mr Lammy told Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “You meet someone, they have children, a previous arrangement… Many families up and down the country live in more than one home.

“That’s what the photos I saw reflect and it’s consistent with the advice that Angela took in terms of her tax affairs from accountants and from lawyers. I don’t think this is a story.”

Mr Lammy went on to suggest in a second interview that Ms Rayner was being targeted because she was from the north of England and questions about her arrangements were an attempt by the Tories to distract from the local elections on May 2.

“Why do we land on this northern woman who had an arrangement with her husband, a blended family?” he asked the BBC’S Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

“Why do we focus on her and say that she should be the exception? She shouldn’t be the exception, she hasn’t broken any rules. This is because of the May elections and the Tories not wanting to concentrate on their actions.”

James Daly, a Tory party deputy chairman, led renewed criticism this weekend and called on Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, to launch “a full transparent and independent investigation” into his deputy’s tax affairs.

He said: “She should stop dismissing and distracting and come clean now.”

Ms Rayner has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and insisted she will only publish her independent tax advice, which she claims makes clear that she has acted appropriately, if Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt do the same.

The Telegraph understands she has handed the advice to senior Labour officials, who have examined it line by line.

But Ms Rayner told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme last month she would not disclose its contents “because that’s my personal tax advice”.

A Labour spokesman said: “Angela and her husband mutually decided to maintain their existing residences to reflect their family’s circumstances and they shared childcare responsibilities.

“Angela has always made clear she also spent time at her husband’s property when they had children and got married. She was perfectly entitled to do so.”