Starmer says he doesn’t need to see Rayner’s legal advice in council house row

Sir Keir Starmer has insisted that he does not need to see legal advice that Angela Rayner, his deputy, claims exonerates her in the row over her former council house.

On Monday, Sir Keir, the Labour leader, accused the Conservatives of “chasing a smear” by questioning Ms Rayner’s property dealings and whether she avoided tax over the sale.

Ms Rayner has been accused of lying over her former home in Vicarage Road, Stockport, which she bought in 2007 using the Right to Buy scheme before making a £48,500 profit when she sold it eight years later.

She was registered at the property for five years after she married Mark Rayner in 2010, while he was listed at a different address in Lowndes Lane, a mile away.

The confusion over which property was her principal residence has led to questions over whether she avoided capital gains tax by retaining the property for more than five years.

Neighbours have claimed Ms Rayner was not living at Vicarage Road, as she claims. However, the Labour deputy leader has said she  has “done absolutely nothing wrong” and took legal advice that no rules were broken.

She said she would present this to the police or HMRC, but would not publicly release her “personal tax advice”.

Sir Keir, speaking on a visit to a hospital in Sutton-in-Ashfield, in the East Midlands, defended Ms Rayner and said people were more interested in “problems caused by this Government”.

He added: “Angela Rayner has been asked no end of questions about this. She’s answered them all. She said she’s very happy to answer any further questions from the police or from any of the authorities. I don’t need to see the legal advice. My team has seen it. 

“But I will say this – that A&E figures show people are waiting more than 24 hours in A&E. We now know that they are 10 times as high as they were five years ago.

“The Tories want to be focusing on Angela Rayner. I can tell you here at this hospital that nobody but nobody is interested in that. They’re very, very interested in what are you going to do about the A&E problem caused by this Government?”

Sir Keir added that it was “not appropriate” for him to see Ms Rayner’s legal advice personally, saying: “But if you’re waiting more than 24 hours for A&E, you’re much more interested in why the Government is not absolutely laser focused on that, which is what they should be, rather than chasing this smear against Angela Rayner and how much time she spent with her husband over 10 years ago.”

Richard Holden, the Conservative Party chairman, has written to Sir Keir and Ms Rayner, saying: “You have pledged to uphold standards in public life, but the failure by you and your deputy to answer the simplest questions about this matter makes a mockery of these claims.

“Given the clear public interest in this case, your unwillingness to investigate this fully so far, or even bother to look at legal advice Ms Rayner claims to have received, is a damning indictment of your leadership.”

Jack Lopresti, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, said Sir Keir must commit to an independent inquiry, accusing him of “deliberately trying to avoid dealing with a serious ethics scandal engulfing his deputy because he is too weak to lead”. 

He claimed: “Angela Rayner has clearly not been telling the truth about where she lived. Sir Keir must order an independent inquiry to get to the bottom of the matter.”

Greater Manchester Police is also facing pressure from Conservatives, who have accused the force of failing to consider the documents or contact witnesses after it said Ms Rayner would not face an investigation.

GMP said: “We have received a complaint regarding our decision not to investigate an allegation and are in the process of reassessing this decision. The complainant will be updated with the outcome of the reassessment in due course.”

The claim about Ms Rayner’s council house originated in Red Queen? The Unauthorised Biography of Angela Rayner by Lord Ashcroft, a former Tory peer.