Angela Rayner has “played by the rules” when it comes to her tax affairs, her shadow cabinet colleague has said, amid further claims around her former living arrangements.
Labour’s deputy leader has come under the spotlight in recent weeks over the sale of an ex-council house she previously owned in Stockport, having been accused of avoiding capital gains tax on it – something she has denied.
The allegations centre around whether the property was her primary residence, as she claims, or whether she was actually living at her then husband’s address nearby, making her liable for capital gains after the sale of the property.
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The Mail on Sunday has now claimed to have seen dozens of social media posts from the Labour MP between 2010 and 2015, which it said showed her now ex’s address was her main property.
But shadow foreign secretary David Lammy told Sky News that all the report showed was “like so many families across the country [Ms Rayner] had and has a blended family,” adding: “Like everybody else, she had a complicated life and spent time in her husband’s place but also her place. Lots of families do that.”
Speaking on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, the fellow Labour MP said Ms Rayner had “done nothing wrong” and had the “full support” of the party.
But challenged over why she would not publish her tax returns, having called on Rishi Sunak to do so, Mr Lammy said: “I think there’s a different arrangement and expectation for the prime minister than there is in this context and we are not yet in government.”
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Lammy: ‘I don’t think this is a story’
He added: “We are in a political season, we all know there is an election in May, we know why these smears are being run.
“It is to detract from the £870 that average families are less well off in this country as a result of the tax burden from the Tories. That’s what this is really about.
“It is not about Angela Rayner and her blended family. It is about Tory chaos, ‘let’s distract and focus on this non-story’.”
Mr Lammy concluded: “She has played by the rules. There is an investigation going on, let’s see where we get on that, but I am confident that Angela has done nothing wrong here at all.”
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However, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, James Daly, called on Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to “show some leadership and open a full, transparent and independent investigation into the Rayner scandal”.
He said: “As more evidence that Rayner appears to have lied comes to light, it is increasingly clear that the British people cannot trust Labour’s deputy leader. She should stop dismissing and distracting and come clean now.
“If Rayner has lied but Sir Keir Starmer refuses to sack her, it will show yet again that Keir Starmer is just a weak leader whose claim that Labour have changed is rubbish.”
In response to the Mail’s claims, a Labour Party spokesperson 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.”