Sir Keir Starmer backed Angela Rayner over a row about her council home yesterday but declined to publish evidence to back up her claims.
The Labour leader’s spokesman said he had ‘confidence’ in his deputy yesterday – but refused to say that the matter was ‘closed’ and referred all further questions to her office.
Ms Rayner, 43, is under pressure to clarify where she was living when she sold her council house in 2015 after she recorded two different addresses on official forms.
Questions also remain about whether Labour’s deputy leader paid the correct amount of captial gains tax on the sale of her home if she was living with her husband, as neighbours claim.
Yesterday, Sir Keir’s spokesman said he had ‘absolute confidence in the answers that her team have given to these questions already’.
Ms Rayner, 43, is under pressure to clarify where she was living when she sold her council house in 2015 after she recorded two different addresses on official forms
However, he did not explain the discrepancy on the official forms or clarify why she has stated that she is not liable for Capital Gains Tax.
According to the electoral register, Ms Rayner was living at the house she owned in Vicarage Road, Stockport, Greater Manchester between 2009-2015.
However, neighbours say she moved into her husband’s nearby house in Lowndes Lane in 2009, and she stated that she lived in his home when she re-registered her children’s births in 2010 following her marriage.
The Daily Mail revealed yesterday that neighbours said that her brother had lived in her home – and described her as the ‘landlady’.
Giving false information on the electoral register is an offence under the Representation of the People Act and is punishable with imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.
Giving false information on a birth certificate is an offence under the Perjury Act and is punishable by prison or a fine.
Asked about the discrepancy on the forms yesterday, Sir Keir’s spokesman said that he was confident that Ms Rayner had not broken electoral law – but would not comment on whether she had incorrectly filled out her children’s birth certificate.
When asked whether Sir Keir believed that she was telling the truth about her living circumstances during that time, the spokesman said: ‘Correct.’
The Labour leader’s spokesman said he had ‘confidence’ in his deputy yesterday – but refused to say that the matter was ‘closed’
Last night Ms Rayner’s spokesman refused to say which of the two official forms had been incorrectly filled out.
Ms Rayner has said: ‘I owned my own home, lived there, paid the bills there and was registered to vote there, prior to selling the house in 2015.’
She has also stated that she was ‘not liable for Capital Gains Tax because it was my home and the only one I owned’, adding: ‘My husband already owned his own home independently.’
HMRC states that a homeowner does not need to pay CGT on their main home, an exemption known as Private Residence Relief.
However, this can only be used if a person has lived in it as their ‘main home for all the time [they’ve] owned it’.
The story was originally revealed in a new book Red Queen?, The Unauthorised Biography of Angela Rayner by Lord Ashcroft, which will be serialised in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday
Neighbours claim Ms Rayner moved out of her home and into her husband’s home in 2009 – six years before she sold it.
HMRC treats married couples as living together and states that they can only declare one home as their main residence within a two-year period.
Ms Rayner’s husband sold his house in 2016, meaning that the couple could not have claimed relief on both addresses.
Asked whether Sir Keir was confident that she had paid all the tax that was due on the sale of her home, the spokesman again referred reporters to Ms Rayner’s office.
Ms Rayner has claimed that she wasn’t liable for CGT on the sale of her house – but her spokesman refused to say whether she was liable for the tax on her husband’s house.
The story was originally revealed in a new book Red Queen?, The Unauthorised Biography of Angela Rayner by Lord Ashcroft, which will be serialised in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday next month.
It revealed that Ms Rayner bought her council house under Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme – a policy she has pledged to review as shadow housing secretary.
She has denied charges of hypocrisy, claiming that she was proud to have bought her own home. She later sold it for a £48,500 profit.
