RAYNER ON THE ROPES
She flounders in interview and refuses to publish legal advice ++ Local authority launches council tax probe and police reconsider case
LABOUR was last night under intense pressure to set out the truth about Angela Rayner’s controversial property dealings.
sir Keir starmer yesterday backed his deputy over claims she may have dodged tax and even broken the law when she sold her former council house a decade ago.
The Labour leader said he was ‘satisfied’ that ‘tax and legal’ advice commissioned by Ms rayner proved she had done nothing wrong. But in an extraordinary twist, the former director of public prosecutions later admitted he had not even seen the advice himself before declaring Ms rayner to be innocent.
The police this week confirmed they were reconsidering a formal investigation into the affair, having previously dismissed it. In a further development last night, stockport Council said it was reviewing whether Ms rayner claimed a single person’s council discount on the property, while letting her brother live there.
Ms rayner yesterday said she had
done ‘ absolutely nothing wrong’, but insisted she would not publish ‘personal’ tax and legal advice.
Conservative Party deputy chairman Jonathan Gullis urged Sir Keir to come clean and set out the truth about his deputy’s past property dealings. In a letter to the Labour leader, Mr Gullis noted Sir Keir’s previously stated view that ‘there should be no power without accountability, and true accountability requires transparency’.
He said it was not good enough for Ms Rayner to rely on advice she is unwilling to publish, adding: ‘As things stand, the public has no knowledge of what information she gave to whoever advised her, let alone what advice she was given.’
Mr Gullis said Sir Keir had a duty to explain how he had cleared Ms Rayner without even seeing the advice she is relying on, adding that it was not even clear whether the advice covered tax or legal issues.
And he asked whether the Labour leader was ‘content’ for his deputy to have made ‘misleading statements to the media’ about the issue.
Mr Gullis urged Sir Keir to answer the many outstanding questions about the affair, adding: ‘If you cannot, I would ask that you compel your deputy to answer them.’
He added: ‘I know you will be anxious to avoid a deputy leadership election, especially
‘Misleading statements to the media’
with the splits in your party over Gaza, but if you are to stand by your previous statements and reassure the public, you and Ms Rayner must answer the questions that I and others have put to you.’
Ms Rayner yesterday said she had received ‘personal tax advice’ which exonerated her over the sale of a house in Stockport which neighbours say was effectively a second home.
The Labour firebrand, who is on course to be Britain’s first female deputy prime minister, has been mired in controversy since The Mail on Sunday revealed her complex property dealings last month.
Greater Manchester Police confirmed this week that officers were reassessing a decision not to investigate claims that she gave false information on official documents. HM Revenue and Customs has also been asked to investigate whether she should have paid capital gains tax on the sale of the property.
Ms Rayner told the BBC she was willing to hand the advice to both the police and the taxman. But she said she would not be publishing it because it was ‘personal’.
During tense exchanges with presenter Nick Robinson, she insisted: ‘I’m not going to lie about tax advice. That would be ridiculous, unless I’m being accused of being a liar.’
She said separately that she would publish her tax advice only if a string of Conservative ministers, including Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt also published details of their tax affairs going back 15 years.
‘If you show me yours, then I’ll show you mine,’ she added. Sir Keir backed his deputy and said he was ‘satisfied’ that the advice showed she ‘has not broken any rules’.
Speaking alongside Ms Rayner at an event in Dudley to launch Labour’s local election campaign, Sir Keir said: ‘Angela has my full support and my full confidence today and every day as we work to take the Labour Party back into government.
‘Angela has answered I don’t know how many questions. She has not broken any rules. She has taken legal and tax advice which has satisfied her and us and me.’
But he later admitted that he had not seen the advice himself, telling Sky News: ‘I have faith in Angela Rayner’s answers.
‘I know she’s taken legal advice. My team has looked at it. Her team’s looked at it. There is no need for me personally to look at it, nor is it appropriate to do so.’
Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns pointed out that Ms Rayner has previously called on Tory ministers, such as former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, to publish details of their own tax affairs to clear up controversies. She has also frequently urged ministers accused of wrongdoing to resign, even before the case is proven.
Ms Jenkyns said: ‘Angela Rayner is caught in her own web of hypocrisy. She is quick to point fingers at others, but conveniently ignores her own alleged rulebreaking.’
Ms Rayner used Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme to purchase her former council home in Vicarage Road, Stockport, in January 2007, before becoming an MP.
She married Mark Rayner in September 2010 and when the couple reregistered the births of their two sons that year, they provided
Mark’s address in nearby Lowndes Lane. But Ms rayner remained on the electoral roll at Vicarage road until 2015 when she sold the house at a profit of £48,500.
A married couple can have only one main residence, with capital gains tax due on the sale of a second home. experts have suggested she should have paid up to £3,000 in capital gains tax.
Ms rayner has repeatedly refused to say which property she was living in during a six-year period from 2009 to 2015.
Knowingly providing false information on an electoral registration form is an offence, which can carry a six-month prison sentence or unlimited fine.
earlier this month, she told the Mail that the house in Vicarage road was her ‘principal property’ but said she would ‘spend time’ at Lowndes Lane after her children were born because her husband ‘wanted to see his children’.
But neighbours at both properties insist she lived at Lowndes Lane throughout this period, despite registering on the electoral roll at Vicarage road. One branded her a ‘f***ing liar’.
Neighbours also say Ms rayner’s brother, Darren Bowen, lived at Vicarage road from 2012, despite being on the electoral roll at Lowndes Lane. Stockport Council said it was ‘reviewing’ reports that Ms rayner may have claimed single person’s council tax discount on Mr Bowen’s behalf while she was living at her property.
SPARE a thought for Angela Rayner’s poor political opponents when she senses even the slightest whiff of impropriety.
Like a terrier sighting a rat, Labour’s deputy leader pursues her quarry tenaciously, and with a dollop of moralising thrown in for good measure.
When then Tory chairman Nadhim Zahawi got into bother with the Inland Revenue, she led calls for him to come clean or resign.
And when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was on the rack over failing to declare his wife’s business interests, she volubly condemned the ‘transparency black hole’.
Yet when inconvenient questions are asked over her own tangled property and financial dealings, Mrs Rayner becomes uncustomarily coy. This reticence is regrettable.
The row centres on the Stockport council house, which she bought in 2007 for £79,000 and sold eight years later for £127,500 – a gross profit of £48,500.
She contends that after marrying in 2010 she lived apart from husband Mark in her property for five years, exempting her from capital gains tax. But neighbours insist she is lying and that her brother resided there.
Ms Rayner is not just feeling the heat over her tax affairs. Police are reviewing claims she broke electoral law by being registered to vote at her house, despite allegedly living with her other half a mile away.
Surely any semi- competent detective could get to the bottom of this mystery.
After a month of trying to avoid covering this story, the BBC has got there in the end.
In a risibly chummy interview – ‘Forgive me for doing this on your birthday’ – Radio 4 presenter Nick Robinson asked Ms Rayner about the apparent tax discrepancies (but ignored the potential police probe).
She claimed to have recently acquired tax advice exonerating her. If she has done nothing wrong, why not disclose it? That would be the easiest way to draw a line under this unedifying matter.
But she refuses, instead resorting to dissembling and obfuscation. Her every statement has made her look shifty and evasive, throwing more petrol on to the fire.
Sir Keir Starmer has declared himself satisfied by his deputy’s explanation – despite not having seen her evidence. Yet had this been a Tory, he would be obsessively questioning it. The hypocrisy is flagrant.
Predictably, Labour has accused her opponents of running a smear campaign.
That is unfortunate. Ms Rayner is on the brink of power. She may think this a storm in a teacup, but the principle is enormous.
In a democracy, those who aspire to make laws and spend the nation’s taxes must be transparent about their own affairs.
This is about public trust. If she is innocent, she has nothing to fear.