MP Angela Rayner says she did 'nothing wrong' over council house sale
14.03.2024 - 20:15
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said she did 'nothing wrong' when selling her former council house before she became an MP - following questions about whether she paid the right amount of tax on the sale.
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP repeated her denial that any capital gains tax had been due on the property sale from 2015, saying she had reached that conclusion after consulting tax experts.
During emotive remarks at a lunch on Thursday with Westminster reporters, she criticised the decision by some media outlets to publish her child's birth certificate as journalists looked to verify whether her living situation meant she had further tax to pay. Ms Rayner, who is also the shadow housing secretary, called the move 'totally unacceptable'.
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The mother-of-three said it was 'wrong' that she was having to 'trawl through all of my personal details' in response to press reports about the sale as she called for privacy.
Ms Rayner has rejected suggestions in a book by a former Conservative Party deputy chairman, titled Red Queen? The Unauthorised Biography of Angela Rayner, that she failed to properly declare her main residency.
Lord Ashcroft’s book alleges that the MP bought her former council house, in Vicarage Road in Stockport, with a 25 per cent discount in 2007 under right-to-buy, a scheme introduced by former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1980. The former carer is said to have made a £48,500 profit when selling the house eight years later.
According to an article last month by the Mail On Sunday (MoS), which is serialising Lord Ashcroft’s book, documents indicate that Ms Rayner was registered on the