Rayner is not a tax avoider, says Reeves in council house row

RACHEL REEVES was forced to deny that Angela Rayner is a tax avoider amid mounting pressure over the sale of her former council house.

The shadow chancellor said she had “full faith and trust” in Ms Rayner amid an ongoing row about her property in Stockport in 2015.

Greater Manchester Police is considering whether to look again at the issue of whether the Labour deputy leader should have been liable for capital gains tax.

Ms Reeves told BBC Breakfast: “Angela is a good friend and a colleague of mine and I have full faith and trust in her.

“She has answered questions about this and I have confidence that, you know 10 years ago, she paid the right amount of tax when she sold her home.”

Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether Ms Rayner deliberately avoided tax, Ms Reeves replied: “Angela has answered questions about this in quite some detail, and she’s also sought additional tax and legal advice.”

Ms Rayner strenuously denies any wrongdoing and has the backing of Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, who on Monday insisted he did not need to see legal advice that Ms Rayner claims exonerates her.

Sir Keir accused the Tories of “chasing a smear” by questioning his deputy’s property dealings and whether she avoided tax over the sale.

Ms Rayner bought her home in Vicarage Road in Stockport in 2007 using the Right to Buy scheme before making a £48,500 profit when she sold it eight years later. She was not liable to pay capital gains tax on the sale because it was her main address on the electoral roll.

But in 2010, weeks after marrying Mark Rayner, her now-estranged husband, she re-registered the births of her two youngest children at his address on Lowndes Lane, raising questions about whether she had moved in with him.

Richard Holden, the Conservative Party chairman, wrote to Sir Keir last weekend about the allegations that Ms Rayner provided false information on the electoral register throughout a fiveyear period.

“You have pledged to uphold standards in public life, but the failure by you and your deputy to answer the simplest questions about this matter makes a mockery of these claims,” he said.

“Given the clear public interest in this case, your unwillingness to investigate this fully so far, or even bother to look at legal advice Ms Rayner claims to have received, is a damning indictment of your leadership.”

Ms Rayner has repeatedly refused calls for her to publish the tax advice and insisted that she would only do so if Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt published their own tax affairs in full, telling her Tory counterparts: “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

Labour has said that Ms Rayner and her husband “mutually decided to maintain their existing residences to reflect their family’s circumstances”, adding that they shared childcare responsibilities.

In a statement issued at the weekend, Labour added: “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.”

It comes as a former adviser to Tory grandee Ken Clarke has joined Labour’s new four person panel to help crack down on tax avoidance.

Sir Edward Troup, who worked with Lord Clarke in the Treasury, will offer guidance on how to boost compliance and modernise HMRC as part of a drive to fill a funding hole created when the Tories copied Labour’s non-dom plans in last month’s Budget.

The panel has been tasked with advising Sir Keir and Ms Reeves on narrowing the “tax gap” between what is owed and what is actually paid, including possible changes to HMRC’S powers and penalties and measures to digitise the tax office and improve customer service.