Angela Rayner is a “great British success story” and it is a “mistake” for people to be briefing against her, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
The prime minister strongly defended his deputy after she came under scrutiny over her tax affairs.
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The Daily Telegraph has reported that Ms Rayner, who is also the housing secretary, avoided £40,000 in stamp duty when buying a second home after telling tax authorities it was her main home.
Ms Rayner insists she paid the correct duty while her allies suggest briefings against her are driven by classism and misogyny.
Asked if she has questions to answer, Sir Keir told BBC Radio 5 Live: “Angela came from a very humble background, battled all sorts of challenges along the way.
“I’m proud of her as our deputy prime minister and one of the things that drives me about politics is that aspiration is an opportunity for people to go as far as their talent will take them”.
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The prime minister said Ms Rayner has had “people briefing against her and talking her down over and over again” and that is a “big mistake”.
He called her a “great story of British success” that will give “working class children, particularly girls, a real sense of aspiration”.
“They will look at Angela and think, I can do something like that. What a brilliant thing.”
Ms Rayner grew up on a council estate in Stockport and left school at 16 pregnant with no qualifications. She said she had no books in her house growing up because her mother couldn’t read or write and she was told she would “never amount to anything”.
Sir Keir’s remarks come after a Downing Street spokesman insisted the prime minister had confidence in Ms Rayner and that there is a court order which restricts her from providing further information over her tax affairs “which she’s urgently working on rectifying in the interests of public transparency”.
The spokesman rejected a suggestion that Darren Jones, who has been appointed to the new ministerial role of chief secretary to the prime minister, would be a de facto deputy prime minister.
There is no suggestion Ms Rayner broke any laws over the stamp duty on her home, but the Tories said she should face an ethics investigation.
Stamp duty is a tax paid in England and Northern Ireland when someone buys a property over a certain price.
In last autumn’s budget, the government increased the additional rate of stamp duty on second homes by 5%.
According to the Telegraph, Ms Rayner is understood to have removed her name from the deeds of her house in Greater Manchester a few weeks before buying a flat in Hove, East Sussex, worth £800,000, meaning the Hove property is the only property she owns.
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The changes enabled her to avoid a higher rate of stamp duty that would have been applicable if the Hove flat was classed as a second home, the paper said. It claimed she paid £30,000 rather than £70,000 in stamp duty, saving £40,000 in the process.
The newspaper also claimed Ms Rayner previously suggested the Greater Manchester home remained her primary residence, saving around £2,000 in council tax on her grace and favour home in central London.
Kevin Hollinkrake, the Conservative Party chairman, said the arrangement amounted to “hypocritical tax avoidance, by a minister who supports higher taxes on family homes, high-value homes and second homes”.
A spokesperson for Ms Rayner has said she “paid the correct duty” on the purchase “entirely properly” – and “any suggestion otherwise is entirely without basis”.
A Cabinet Office spokesman added that Ms Rayner “has followed advice on the allocation of her official residence at all times”.
