Angela Rayner is fighting for her political life today with an ethics probe into her tax affairs set to conclude within days – as it emerged she used some of her disabled son’s NHS compensation to buy her second home.
Ms Rayner, 45, is facing calls to resign or be sacked from Government after rocking Westminster with an admission that she underpaid stamp duty when she bought a lavish £800,000 seaside home.
After weeks of stonewalling from Labour she tearfully admitted she was not eligible for a £40,000 stamp duty discount she received when she bought the property in Hove in the summer.
She now faces an anxious wait for the results of a probe by ethics watchdog Sir Laurie Magnus, while HMRC is also investigating.
But Sir Keir is said to be determined to save her, and ministers have claimed the grandmother and former single mum is being targeted because of her working class background.
The investigation continued as new details emerged about the financial arrangements behind her new home purchase.
The Deputy Prime Minister received £162,500 from a trust fund set up to care for 17-year-old Charlie, who was born prematurely.
The money, which she put towards the deposit on the flat, was paid to her when she sold a 25 per cent share of her house 260 miles away in Ashton-under-Lyne into trust.
Ms Rayner said on Wednesday that the Greater Manchester property had been adapted for her son’s special needs, and she had transferred her share of the house to the trust to ensure he had ‘stability in the family home’.
This morning senior Cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson revealed the DPM received new legal advice on Monday suggesting she had underpaid the housing tax. But No10 continued to defend her into Tuesday.
She said her son had received an award in 2020. The Telegraph said it followed an 11-year legal battle waged between the Rayners and the hospital where her son was born in 2008, weighing less than 1 lb, that resulted in the NHS paying compensation.
The Labour MP has previously suggested a locum doctor made an error that contributed to his lifelong disabilities. It is unclear how much money was paid out as part of the NHS damages claim. The Rayners set up the trust in 2020. In 2023, they transferred half the ownership of the house into it.
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust declined to reveal details of any settlement reached, saying ‘these are confidential patient matters’. Ms Rayner’s office was approached for comment.
The BBC reported today that Ms Rayner sought advice from three lawyers – a conveyancer and two trust experts – regarding her flat purchase this summer.
Ms Phillipson, the Education Secretary, told Times Radio that Ms Rayner had been ‘open, she set out the information and referred herself to the independent adviser’.
Responding to the suggestion the Deputy Prime Minister could have set out the position a week earlier, Ms Phillipson said: ‘She sought legal advice, fresh legal advice, expert advice, which came back on Monday, then applied to the court to have the necessary order lifted on Tuesday, and made a full public statement and gave an interview on Wednesday.
‘So, she has acted in good faith, sought to act appropriately with the information available to her.’
Science Secretary Peter Kyle told LBC last night that Ms Rayner was ‘being treated very differently’ because she was from a working class background.
He added: ‘Just because it is Angela, with her accent and her background, people are treating her in a way they wouldn’t, that if a Tory MP who was born in wealth had a second home, which many of them do already.’
No 10 repeatedly refused to say yesterday whether the PM knew the claims against her were true when he accused her critics of making a ‘mistake’.
Sir Keir told MPs he had been ‘speaking at length’ with Ms Rayner about the scandal in recent days, but No 10 refused to say exactly when these conversations took place.
Downing Street has spent the past 10 days defending the Deputy Prime Minister, describing claims that she dodged tax as being ‘entirely without basis’.
This defence continued until Tuesday. No 10 refused to say whether the PM or his officials had made any independent attempts to verify public responses being given by Ms Rayner.
Sir Keir, the ultimate arbiter of whether a minister needs to resign for breaking the ministerial code, gave his deputy a friendly pat on the shoulder today as he entered the Commons for the weekly session of Prime Minister’s Questions.
He said: ‘I can be clear that I am very proud to sit alongside a Deputy Prime Minister who is building 1.5 million homes, who is bringing forward the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation, and who has come from a working-class background to be Deputy Prime Minister of this country.’