Keir Starmer receives ethics report into Angela Rayner with Deputy PM expected to leave Government: Live updates

Angela Rayner is expected to leave the Government today, according to reports.

Sky News and The Times are reporting a decision has been made on the Deputy PM’s future and that she will no longer serve in Keir Starmer’s administration.

We will bring you official news when we can.

Conservative Kemi Badenoch immediately demanded the Prime Minister sack Ms Rayner and challenged him to show a ‘backbone’, although her performance at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, just minutes after the admission was made public, was criticised by some political commentators as ineffective.

If you are the deputy PM helping to set tax policy, if you are the housing minister deciding where people are going to live, how much that is going to cost, you need to get your own affairs in order.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said Rayner had the summer celebrating her growing ‘property empire’

Leader Sir Ed Davey offered a more sympathetic response to Ms Rayner, suggesting that while her position may be untenable as a result of the ethics investigation, she may have been guided by her disabled child’s interests.

I understand it is normally the role of opposition leaders to jump up and down and call for resignations – as we’ve seen plenty of from the Conservatives already. Obviously if the ethics adviser says Angela Rayner has broken the rules, her position may well become untenable.

But as a parent of a disabled child, I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son’s care after we have gone, so I can completely understand and trust that the Deputy PM was thinking about the same thing here. Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country.

Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice said Ms Rayner’s position was ‘completely indefensible’.

If anyone from any other party had been in that situation and tried to dodge paying the correct amount of tax, no-one would have screamed and hollered louder than the Deputy Prime Minister. Morally, her situation was always completely indefensible.

Leader Nigel Farage added he could not see how Ms Rayner survived the scandal while in Washington DC earlier this week

Angela Rayner’s stamp duty scandal has sparked a disparaging AI video where she is transformed into a brash rapper who declares: ‘Starmer blushing, I’m still fine, you pay full tax, I skip the line’.

With her political career on the precipice, the Deputy Prime Minister is lampooned in a viral skit entitled: ‘How Many Homes Can Rayner Buy?’

Ms Rayner, 45, who is shown wearing a fur coat over a tracksuit, is also shown flashing wad of cash – a nod to the £40,000 she belatedly admitted to underpaying in stamp duty on a £800,000 seaside flat she bought in Hove in May.

In the computer-generated video, now viewed by hundreds of thousands of people online in the past 24 hours, Rayner raps: ‘Bought me one house, bought me two; flip another flat, taxman no clue; £80K saved with a Brighton tan; Dodgin’ more duty than the average man’.

The AI-inspired Angela adds while at the despatch box: ‘How many homes, I’ll name ’em all; Big Ange dancin’ in the Commons hall; Taxman cryin’, Rayner smilin’; One rule for me, none for thee!’.

Sir Keir Starmer indicated he is ready to sack Ms Rayner if she has broken the ministerial code.

The Prime Minister vowed to ‘act on whatever the report is’ into his deputy’s tax affairs, but refused to guarantee her dismissal five times.

On Wednesday, Ms Rayner gave a tearful interview to Sky News in which she laid the blame for her troubles on her lawyers.

But last night, that version of events was dealt a serious blow by Verrico & Associates, based in Herne Bay, Kent, which issued a bombshell statement saying it had calculated the stamp duty ‘strictly based on the facts and information provided to us’ – and that it did not offer tax advice.

Mrs Verrico (pictured above), who founded the practice in 1994 assisted by her three daughters, told the Telegraph:

We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.

The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner. That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us.

We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.

We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.

It is understood Ms Rayner is arguing she received at least three pieces of legal advice, including from a trust overseeing her disabled son’s affairs as well as from a conveyancer, supporting her initial position.

But she has yet to reveal if any other lawyer gave her further advice to support her claim she had gone through proper channels and been misadvised.

MFG Solicitors of Kidderminster, which was involved in conveyancing at her family home in Ashton-under-Lyne, said it ‘did not act for Ms Rayner in the purchase of her property in Hove, nor did we provide any tax-related advice in relation to it’. And law firm Shoosmiths, which previously acted for her, also ruled itself out.

As the mystery grew over her flat purchase last week, Ms Rayner sought advice from a tax barrister – who told her this week that she had been wrong not to pay the higher amount of stamp duty, prompting her mea culpa on Wednesday.

Dan Neidle, a tax expert who has advised the Labour Party, tweeted: ‘It’s looking increasingly like Ms Rayner didn’t actually obtain tax advice before this week.’

So far Ms Rayner, who is also the Housing Secretary, has refused to say which firms she consulted before the Hove transaction.

It’s been a busy week for Angela Rayner who today could learn her political fate as an ethics report into her tax affairs is delivered.

Let’s take a look back at how her confession unfolded:

Angela Rayner has been dubbed ‘Three Pads’ Rayner following her purchase of a flat in Hove.

She is said to have saved £40,000 in stamp duty on the apartment because she removed her name from the deeds of a family property in her constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester.

The deed changes supposedly allowed Ms Rayner to pay £30,000 in stamp duty instead of £70,000, which would have been applied if the Hove property was her second home.

Speaking to Sky News on Wednesday, she said:

I’ve been in shock, really, because I thought I’d done everything properly, and I relied on the advice that I received and I’m devastated because I’ve always upheld the rules and always have felt proud to do that.

That it is devastating for me and the fact that the reason why those confidential clauses were in place was to protect my son, who, through no fault of his own, he’s vulnerable, he’s got this life-changing, lifelong conditions and I don’t want him or anything to do with his day-to-day life, to be subjected to that level of scrutiny.

Following her emotional TV interview in which she admitted not paying enough stamp duty on her £800,000 seaside property in Hove, Angela Rayner released a statement setting out events leading up to this week.

Dissecting her words into important dates, let’s take a look at how we got where we are today:

Rayner explains a trust was set up for her son as a premature baby following a ‘deeply personal and distressing incident’ which has left him with life-long disabilities.

Rayner said interest in her family home in Ashton-under-Lyne was transferred to the trust. Following her divorce in the same year, Ms Rayner said she and her ex-husband agreed to a ‘nesting arrangement’ where their children remained in the family home while the parents lived there at alternate times. She says this home remains her family home.

Rayner said she sold her remaining interest in the Ashton property to her son’s trust, thereby allowing him the ‘security of knowing the home is his’. She maintains the Ashton property remains her family home.

Rayner said she bought the Hove property with the proceeds from her stake in the Ashton property. She said she was told by her lawyers she was liable for the ‘standard rate’ of stamp duty but after seeking further advice discovered she was subject to ‘additional liabilities’ because of what she described as ‘complex deeming provisions’ related to her son’s trust.

Angela Rayner is facing a moment of truth as soon as today with Keir Starmer’s sleaze adviser preparing to give his verdict on her property dealings.

Sir Laurie Magnus could deliver his report on the deputy PM after furious lawyers accused her of trying to make them ‘scapegoats’ for her underpaying tens of thousands of pounds in stamp duty.

Ms Rayner’s hold on her job is looking increasingly tenuous after Sir Keir refused to rule out sacking her yesterday, insisting he would ‘act’ on the findings from Sir Laurie.

The situation is particularly difficult for the PM as while he can remove Ms Rayner from Cabinet, she has a separate elected mandate as Labour’s deputy leader.

Senior figures have been rallying around Ms Rayner since her extraordinary admission that she had failed to pay enough stamp duty, suggesting she is being persecuted for her working class background.

Good morning and welcome to the Daily Mail’s live coverage as Angela Rayner awaits the verdict of Keir Starmer’s ethics adviser into her tax affairs.

The Deputy Prime Minister admitted this week she had not paid enough stamp duty on a £800,000 property she purchased in Hove earlier this year.

The Prime Minister has been urged to sack Ms Rayner, who has previously called for the resignations of Conservative MPs for tax avoidance, while some allies have rallied around her.

Ms Rayner referred herself to Sir Laurie Magnus, who is investigating whether she broke the ministerial code, following her admission.

His verdict could be delivered today and may present Keir Starmer with a huge decision as he ultimately makes the final determination on Ms Rayner’s future.

Stick with us for live updates throughout the day plus all the reaction if the report is later released.