Angela Rayner has stood down from government after the prime minister’s ethics adviser found she had breached the ministerial code over her underpayment of stamp duty on her £800,000 seaside flat.
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In a huge blow to Keir Starmer, Sir Laurie Magnus found that Rayner had “acted with integrity and with a dedicated and exemplary commitment to public service” but concluded she had breached the ministerial code over her tax affairs.
Rayner’s departure is deeply damaging for the prime minister, who initially stood firmly by her, and his authority has been badly bruised as a result. She has quit as his deputy and housing secretary, and as deputy leader of the Labour party.
Downing Street sources confirmed the prime minister would now conduct a reshuffle, but that Rachel Reeves would remain in post as chancellor.
In her resignation letter, Rayner said that she “deeply regrets” her decision not to seek “additional specialist tax advice” over her purchase of the Hove property.
She said that she “must also consider the significant toll that the ongoing pressure of the media is taking” on her family, despite her journey from “a teenage mum from a council estate in Stockport” to the highest level of government being “the honour of my life”.
In his response Starmer said Rayner would “remain a major figure in our party” and would “continue to fight for the causes you care so passionately about”.
Rayner’s departure leaves the Labour government without one of its most authentic – and powerful – working-class voices at a time when it is struggling to reconnect with its traditional voter base and trailing Reform UK in the polls.
Rayner had referred herself to the ethics adviser after confirming she would have to pay more stamp duty – which experts have predicted could run to as much as £40,000 – because she had incorrectly paid the lower rate on the flat in Hove.
At the time, Rayner said she “deeply regretted” that the error had been made, after classifying the flat as her only property despite spending much of her time with her children at the family house in Ashton, Greater Manchester.
Months before the Hove purchase, she had put her stake in the Ashton house into a trust that was set up in 2020 to manage a payment to one of her sons, who after a “deeply personal and distressing incident” as a premature baby had been left with lifelong disabilities.
After the revelations, Rayner faced charges of hypocrisy, as the government is expected to increase taxes on property owners in the autumn budget.
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