Angela Rayner speaks to Sky News (Image: Sky News)
Labour former Cabinet Minister Ed Balls has branded Angela Rayner "hypocritical" for failing to resign after admitting she had underpaid ￡40,000 in stamp duty. But Mr Balls, who served in Gordon Brown's government, also suggested Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was scared to sack Ms Rayner, his deputy prime minister.
Mr Balls said: "I think there is sympathy for her personal situation, [...] but Angela Rayner was the person who was on the moral high ground demanding others resign. And it's hypocritical of her [to have] one rule for everybody else, a different rule for her, for her not to resign".
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But speaking on the Political Currency podcast, Mr Balls, a former Education Secretary, also said: "I think Keir Starmer [...] is worried about, you know, a martyr like Angela Rayner on the back benches becoming a pole of political opposition with strong support. Now, if the independent report is damning of her, then she's finished. But Keir Starmer can't afford to prejudge this, and that's why this is in such a delicate balance.”
Sources close to Ms Rayner, who is also the Housing Secretary, said she was given three separate pieces of legal advice before buying an ￡800,000 flat in Hove at the centre of the row.
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They said a conveyancer and two experts in trust law had all suggested the amount of stamp duty she paid on the property was correct and she acted on the advice she was given at the time.
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The conveyancer Ms Rayner used to buy the Hove flat was revealed on Thursday to be Verrico and Associates, a small high street firm based in Herne Bay, Kent.
The minister has been under mounting pressure in recent weeks after reports emerged she had saved ￡40,000 in stamp duty on her East Sussex flat by not paying the higher rate reserved for additional home purchases.
On Wednesday she admitted she had made a “mistake” and said she referred herself to standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus after receiving fresh legal advice that she was liable for the extra duty following headlines about the purchase. It is understood the probe could report back as early as Friday.
In a public statement, Ms Rayner said a court-instructed trust was established in 2020 following a settlement with the NHS over a “deeply personal and distressing incident” involving her son.
He was left with life-long disabilities and to ensure he continued to have stability in the family home in Greater Manchester, she said her family had agreed its interest in that property would be transferred to the trust.
She said she had put her stake in the constituency home in Ashton-under-Lyne into this trust, which a “leading tax counsel” had later told her made her liable to pay the additional stamp duty on her new Hove flat.
No 10 said Ms Rayner retained Sir Keir’s “full confidence” but declined to commit to her staying in post for the rest of this Parliament – an assurance which has previously been given publicly to Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Foreign Secretary David Lammy amid speculation about their positions.
“I’m not going to go through the Cabinet and do that,” a Downing Street spokesperson said on Thursday.
“You have the Prime Minister’s words in the House yesterday, he said that she followed the right course of action and expressed his pride in her work as his deputy.”
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Meanwhile speaking to broadcasters earlier in the morning, Ms Reeves said: “I have full confidence in Angela Rayner. She’s a good friend and a colleague, she has accepted the right stamp duty wasn’t paid.
“That was an error, that was a mistake. She is working hard now to rectify that, in contact with HMRC to make sure that the correct tax is paid.”
The Chancellor added it is “incumbent on all of us to try to properly understand the rules”.
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