Lammy says ‘many families’ live in two homes as Rayner row continues

The shadow foreign secretary defended his Labour colleague after it emerged she called a house she denied living in ‘home’ on social media

The shadow foreign secretary has insisted that “many families” live in two properties after it emerged that Angela Rayner called a house she denied living in “home”.
David Lammy claimed the tax row surrounding the deputy Labour leader was “not a story”, after police said they are looking again at claims Ms Rayner broke electoral law over the sale of her council house in 2015.
The issue is the amount of tax she should have paid and if she should have been liable for capital gains tax based on her primary residence at the time.
Fresh questions have emerged after the Mail on Sunday unearthed dozens of social media posts showing Ms Rayner with her children and cats at her husband’s house, where she has said she did not live, during the period in question, with one captioned “just got home”.
Asked about the row, Mr Lammy told Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “You meet someone, they have children, a previous arrangement… Many families up and down the country live in more than one home.
“That’s what the photos I saw reflect and it’s consistent with the advice that Angela took in terms of her tax affairs from accountants and from lawyers. I don’t think this is a story.”
Mr Lammy went on to suggest in a second interview that Ms Rayner was being targeted because she was from the north of England and questions about her arrangements were an attempt by the Conservatives to distract from the upcoming local elections on May 2.
“Why do we land on this northern woman who had an arrangement with her husband, a blended family?” he asked the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
“Why do we focus on her and say that she should be the exception? She shouldn’t be the exception, she hasn’t broken any rules. This is because of the May elections and the Tories not wanting to concentrate on their actions.”
James Daly, a deputy chairman of the Conservative party, led renewed criticism of Ms Rayner this weekend and called on Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, to launch “a full transparent and independent investigation” into his deputy’s tax affairs.
“She should stop dismissing and distracting and come clean now,” Mr Daly said.
Ms Rayner has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and insisted she will only publish her independent tax advice, which she claims makes clear that she has acted appropriately, if Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt do the same.
The Telegraph understands she has handed the advice over to senior Labour officials, who have gone through it line by line.
But Ms Rayner told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme last month she would not disclose its contents “because that’s my personal tax advice”, while clarifying she would “comply with the necessary authorities that want to see that”.
In her first remarks to the media for several weeks at a lunch for journalists in Westminster last month, Ms Rayner said the confusion around her supposed “two homes” arose from her family “trying to look out for each other” as she spent eight months in intensive care with her baby son.
Ms Rayner registered the former council house in Vicarage Lane in Stockport, which she bought under the Right to Buy scheme in 2007, as her main address on the electoral roll, meaning she was not liable to pay capital gains tax.
But weeks after marrying her now-estranged husband Mark Rayner in 2010, she re-registered the births of her two youngest children at his address on Lowndes Lane, just over a mile away, raising questions whether she moved in with him.
A Labour spokesman said: “Angela and her husband mutually decided to maintain their existing residences to reflect their family’s circumstances and they shared childcare responsibilities.
“Angela has always made clear she also spent time at her husband’s property when they had children and got married. She was perfectly entitled to do so.”