Angela Rayner hopes 'to draw line under' tax row as police meet

Greater Manchester Police were set to meet on Monday to discuss the probe into Rayner’s home sale
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner
PA Wire
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Police chiefs were set to meet on Monday to discuss how to take forward the probe into Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner’s home sale controversy.

Greater Manchester Police launched the investigation after Tory deputy chairman James Daly urged them twice to do so following claims by her former neighbours which appeared to contradict Ms Rayner’s explanation for her living arrangements a decade ago.

Mr Daly claims she may have made a false declaration about where she was living on the electoral register, though Ms Rayner denies any wrongdoing.

Asked about the conflicting accounts, shadow defence secretary John Healey told Times Radio: “That will be for the police to look at but Angela wants to draw a line on this... She has Keir Starmer’s full support.”

Before being elected to Parliament, Ms Rayner is understood to have used the Right to Buy scheme in 2007 to purchase her former council home in Vicarage Road, Stockport.

In 2010, she married Mark Rayner and they re-registered the births of their two sons, providing Mr Rayner’s address. But Ms Rayner is understood to have remained on the electoral roll at Vicarage Road until 2015, when she sold the house.

She has faced questions from the Tories over whether she should have paid capital gains tax on the sale, whether it was her principal residence or not, and if she made a false declaration about where she was living on the electoral register.

But prosecutions for providing a false address on the electoral roll have a time limit of two years after the alleged offence.

Police initially said they would not be investigating the allegations against Ms Rayner, but changed their stance after a second complaint from Mr Daly.

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