Angela Rayner tells ITV News UK Editor Paul Brand that she was “horrified” at the idea she had not paid the correct tax and “welcomed” HMRC clearing her of any wrongdoing after a probe into underpaid stamp duty.
Angela Rayner says she has been cleared of tax avoidance by HMRC and will not face a fine or penalty after a row over underpaid stamp duty last year forced her to resign from government.
The Labour MP stepped down as deputy prime minister and housing secretary last September when an independent ethics advisor found she had broken ministerial code after admitting she had underpaid stamp duty on an £800,000 flat in Hove, which was considered to be her second home.
On Thursday, Rayner announced an HMRC investigation had cleared her of any wrongdoing after concluding Rayner had not sought to avoid paying the correct stamp duty on the purchase of her property in 2025.
In a statement, she said, while HMRC’s investigation found stamp duty was payable at the higher rate, the probe concluded she acted with reasonable care and was not at fault and has paid the stamp duty due on the property at the higher rate.
The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne said she welcomed HMRC’s conclusion.
“I have been exonerated by HMRC of the accusation I deliberately sought to avoid tax,” she said.
Speaking to ITV News’ UK Editor Paul Brand, Rayner said she had “accepted HMRC’s finding”.
“They’ve said that there wasn’t any wrongdoing and that I didn’t try to avoid paying tax or I wasn’t careless in the way in which I conducted myself at the time when I was in government.”
She continued: “I’d taken advice and felt I’d done the right thing and it was right for me to stand down from government and to comply with HMRC, which is what I’ve done.”
Rayner faced mounting pressure over her political future last autumn over the underpaid stamp duty. She initially said she had been advised she was not liable for the second property surcharge because she had sold her stake in her family home in Ashton-under-Lyne to a trust established in 2020 to benefit her disabled son.
Rayner told ITV News: “I’ve never wanted to avoid paying my tax. For me, that was the most distressing thing, that people felt that I was tax dodging or trying to set up trusts to avoid tax, or being careless by not taking the appropriate advice. And HMRC has concluded that that isn’t the case.”
She said she had been “hurt” by the coverage surrounding her tax affairs.
“I didn’t want people to think that the person they know me as, the person who went into politics to fight for people, suddenly dropped all their values and was just on the take. And that’s never been me. And I was horrified that that’s what the consequences could have been, that I’d done something wrong,” she said.
At the time, she conceded she had made a “mistake” after fresh legal advice from a “leading tax counsel” later revealed that she was liable. Rayner told ITV News that her lawyers have told her this is a particularly complex, niche and ambiguous area of tax.
In a statement at the time, Rayner admitted: “I acknowledge that due to my reliance on advice from lawyers which did not properly take account of these provisions, I did not pay the appropriate stamp duty at the time of the purchase.”
The announcement comes at a critical time for the Labour Party as Keir Starmer fights for his premiership following a revolt by Labour MPs after last week’s disastrous election results.
Earlier this week, Rayner called on Starmer to “set out the change our country needs” as she warned Labour is facing its “last chance” after a disastrous set of election results.
Rayner, who has long been seen as a potential successor to the prime minister, stopped short of calling for him to quit, but set out a series of steps he needed to take to win back working-class voters.
She added that it had been a mistake to block Andy Burnham’s possible return to Westminster, saying Labour needs to bring its “best players into Parliament”.
Burnham is also seen as a potential rival to Starmer, and the potential soft-left choice, but his attempt to stand in the Gorton and Denton by-election was thwarted by Labour’s hierarchy.
Wes Streeting, who is on the right of the party, is understood to be resigning as health secretary on Thursday and launching a leadership challenge.
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