Sir Keir Starmer said he expected the report into how his deputy underpaid Stamp Duty tax to be completed quickly, as ITV News Political Correspondent Romilly Weeks and Political Editor Robert Peston report
Ministers have defended Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner as she faces mounting pressure over her political future, following her admission she underpaid stamp duty on her second home.
Rayner, who is also the housing secretary, has referred herself to independent adviser Sir Laurie Magnus and said she made a “mistake” in paying the standard rate, based on legal advice she received at the time.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer would not be drawn on whether he would sack Rayner if she is found to have broken the ministerial code in an interview on Thursday.
Downing Street has also refused to say when Starmer was first made aware of key details that led his deputy to refer herself for an ethics investigation
However, Chancellor Rachel Reeves gave Rayner her “full confidence” to remain in post, while Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said she had “sought to be transparent” in scandal over her tax affairs.
It comes as sources close to the deputy prime minister said she was given three separate pieces of legal advice before buying the property.
They suggested a conveyancer and two experts in trust law had all suggested that the amount of stamp duty she paid on the property was correct and she acted on the advice she was given at the time.
The conveyancer 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.
Meanwhile speaking to broadcasters earlier in the morning, 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.
“Anyone that saw Angela’s statement yesterday, saw her interview yesterday, I think will have a lot of sympathy with some of the challenging family circumstances around this, around Angela’s disabled son, but of course, it is right that people pay their right amount of tax.”
The Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said initial follow-up advice “came back on Monday” and that Rayner then applied to have a court order lifted which prevented her speaking about the arrangements.
“She has acted in good faith, sought to act appropriately with the information available to her,” Phillipson told Times Radio.
“The Deputy Prime Minister has sought to be transparent, has set out in some detail, which has been difficult given that it relates to her family, extensive information.”
But she declined to guarantee Rayner’s political future, insisting the investigation should “run its course”.
Starmer also gave his backing to Rayner during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, telling MPs he was “very proud to sit alongside” her.
On Thursday, graffiti calling the deputy prime minister a “tax evader” appeared at her flat in Hove.
Keir Starmer condemned the vandalism in the “strongest possible terms”, Downing Street said.
Rayner 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.
Details about the complex property arrangements have continued to emerge since her statement on Wednesday, when she had said that a court-instructed trust was established in 2020 following a “deeply personal and distressing incident” involving her son as a premature baby.
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 that 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.
On Thursday, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that she sold her remaining stake to the trust for £160,000.
Tax experts said the new property could not be treated as her only residence because of the nature of the trust.
Conservative party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said her explanation “cannot withstand scrutiny”, as he wrote to HMRC calling for a tax evasion investigation.
Hollinrake also called on the tax authority to “consider the application of a penalty for tax evasion”, which could be as much as the full amount Rayner is said to have saved – £40,000.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform’s Nigel Farage have both called for the deputy prime minister to resign.
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