Sir Keir Starmer is determined to save Angela Rayner after she admitted to dodging £40,000 in tax when purchasing a property.
After weeks of speculation about her property arrangements, the deputy prime minister conceded that she had not paid enough stamp duty on her £800,000 seaside flat in Hove, East Sussex.
And the prime minister is reportedly prepared to do whatever he can to save his deputy, having vowed not to hand his critics a “scalp”. A senior ally of the PM told The Times he has genuine sympathy for Ms Rayner’s position and will do what he can to keep her in his top team, but that ultimately her fate will be decided by the outcome of an independent ethics probe.
Ms Rayner referred herself to the prime minister’s independent ethics adviser, who will interview her over the property purchase in the coming days as part of an investigation into the scandal.
She had been under pressure after it was reported that she had saved £40,000 in stamp duty by removing her name from the deeds of a family home in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency, classifying the Hove flat as her only property despite still spending time at the family house.
In Wednesday’s statement, she said she had taken legal advice when she bought the south coast flat, which suggested she was “liable to pay standard stamp duty”, but had then sought “further advice from a leading tax counsel” after headlines about the arrangement.
But Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the prime minister should sack his deputy.
She added: “I remember when the prime minister said tax evasion is a criminal offence, and should be treated as all other fraud. If he had a backbone he would sack her.”
At PMQs, Sir Keir Starmer backed Ms Rayner, saying he was “very proud to sit alongside” her, and praised her decision to refer herself to the independent ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus.
The education secretary refused on Thursday to back Ms Rayner staying in post, saying that “we have an independent process and an independent adviser… I’m not going to prejudge it”.
“I think it’s right that the independent adviser now looks at all matters in the case, all the facts, and he has the time and whatever he needs in order to reach his conclusion,” Bridget Phillipson told Sky News.
She stressed that Ms Rayner initially believed she acted in good faith and paid the required taxes when purchasing the Hove flat.
In an emotional televised interview on Wednesday, Ms Rayner, who is also the housing secretary, said she had been “in shock” and “devastated” over the scandal. She insisted it was not a “tax dodge” and blamed the underpayment “mistake” on incorrect legal advice.
She told Sky News: “I’ve been in shock, really, because I thought I’d done everything properly, and I relied on the advice that I received and I’m devastated because I’ve always upheld the rules and always have done.
“And always felt proud to do that. I feel, you know, that it is devastating for me.”
