Rayner might face a police probe into ‘false claims over addresses’

Calls are mounting for Angela Rayner to face a police probe into whether or not she supplied false details about her dwelling circumstances earlier than she bought her former council dwelling.

The Tories have written to Greater Manchester Police to demand an investigation after Labour’s deputy chief appeared to have given two completely different addresses in official paperwork.

The declare is contained in a brand new e-book Red Queen? The Unauthorised Biography of Angela Rayner by Lord Ashcroft, which can be serialised within the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday subsequent month.

Documents present that the 43-year-old MP purchased an ex-council home in Stockport, Greater Manchester, in 2007 below Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy pledge.

Ms Rayner, who can be shadow housing secretary, has been accused of ‘pulling up the ladder’ for different social housing tenants as she has vowed to overview the coverage if Labour wins the election.

She bought the property eight years later, making a £48,500 revenue. Tenants should repay a number of the low cost they acquired in the event that they promote inside 5 years.

The allegation has prompted questions on the place Ms Rayner lived throughout that point. 

The confusion is important as a result of below electoral guidelines, voters are anticipated to register at their everlasting dwelling tackle. 

Anyone who knowingly gives false details about the tackle they’re registered to vote at might face conviction and a jail sentence.

Official paperwork seen by the Mail on Sunday present that she was registered on the electoral roll on the ex-council home in Vicarage Road for 5 years after she married Mark Rayner in 2010. 

Despite them being newlyweds, her husband was listed elsewhere – a home in Lowndes Lane, simply over a mile away, which had additionally been purchased below the right-to-buy scheme.

More mysteriously, when Ms Rayner re-registered the births of her two youngest kids that very same 12 months, she gave her tackle as Lowndes Lane.

It shouldn’t be clear, due to this fact, the place she was dwelling after her marriage.

Last night time, Tory MP James Daly wrote to Greater Manchester Police to ask that they examine whether or not she gave the proper data.

‘There is a powerful public curiosity in wanting into this matter,’ he mentioned. The Mail on Sunday interviewed neighbours of each properties who claimed that Ms Rayner moved out of Vicarage Road in 2009 and into Lowndes Lane.

Lord Ashcroft’s e-book says that one neighbour had claimed that her brother Darren had moved in after she moved out when her two youngest kids had been born.

A neighbour in Lowndes Lane mentioned Ms Rayner and her husband had lived there with their kids from the summer time of 2009.

Ms Rayner posted on X, previously Twitter, that the home buy had been ‘by the e-book’ and mentioned it was a ‘proud second’ for her.

She mentioned: ‘Being in a position to purchase my council home again in 2007 was a proud second for me. I labored onerous, saved and acquired it by the e-book. I’m not ashamed – however I’m offended that the Tories have since put the dream of a safe dwelling out of attain for thus many others.’

Ms Rayner accused Lord Ashcroft of taking an ‘unhealthy curiosity in my household’ and ‘kicking down’ at folks like her ‘who graft in robust circumstances to get on in life’.However, she didn’t make clear particulars of her dwelling preparations on the time.

A Labour spokesman mentioned: ‘Angela, who had an older baby from a earlier relationship, and her husband maintained their present residences earlier than shifting into their shared marital dwelling.

‘Their son was born simply 23 weeks into her being pregnant and spent eight months in intensive care, requiring ongoing help from a large community of family and friends, together with Angela’s brother. Beyond the smears, there is no such thing as a recommendations any guidelines have been damaged.’

Right-to-buy was one in every of Margaret Thatcher’s flagship insurance policies, permitting social housing tenants to purchase the properties that they had rented at a beneficiant low cost. It has lengthy been opposed by the Left, and Labour has dedicated to overview the coverage if it wins the election.

A spokesman for the Electoral Commission didn’t touch upon Ms Rayner’s circumstances however mentioned: ‘Normally an individual is resident at an tackle whether it is their everlasting dwelling tackle. Whether somebody is eligible to be on the register at an tackle is for the related electoral registration officer.

‘It is an offence to knowingly present false data within the voter registration software type. If convicted, an individual could also be imprisoned for as much as six months and/or face an infinite superb.

‘This could be a matter for the police to research.’

Stockport Council didn’t reply to a request for remark yesterday.

Last night time a Labour spokesman added: ‘Angela was registered to vote on the dwelling she owned and lived in. The Tories are as soon as once more losing everybody’s time with political game-playing.’

Ms Rayner – who final week met ministers in India for a convention of worldwide economists and politicians – shouldn’t be the primary Labour MP to be accused of hypocrisy. Earlier this 12 months, the Mail revealed that backbencher Apsana Begum was nonetheless dwelling in a council flat greater than two years after admitting ‘it is in all probability not one thing that I want’. And former shadow dwelling secretary Diane Abbott was revealed to have despatched her baby to personal faculty in 2003.

It got here after she had beforehand condemned former Prime Minister Tony Blair and former appearing deputy Labour chief Harriet Harman for not sending their kids to conventional state faculties.

She later admitted her determination was ‘indefensible’.

Ms Harman despatched her baby to grammar faculty in 1996 regardless of Labour opposing the system.

Former schooling secretary Ruth Kelly was additionally criticised after sending her baby to personal faculty in 2007.