Angela Rayner faces mounting questions over council home upgrades

Angela Rayner was going through mounting questions over her housing preparations final night time after it was claimed {that a} council paid hundreds of kilos to improve a property she says she didn’t reside in – to make it appropriate for her household.

Labour‘s Deputy Leader grew to become embroiled in controversy after The Mail on Sunday revealed a thriller over the truth that she was registered individually from her then-husband Mark on the electoral roll for 5 years after they married – with Ms Rayner insisting that she remained residing at a council home she had purchased beneath the right-to-buy scheme.

Greater Manchester Police mentioned final night time that they would supply an replace within the coming days about calls by Tory MPs for them to analyze the matter, which is revealed in a brand new biography of Ms Rayner by Lord Ashcroft that might be serialised in The Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail later this month.

Ms Rayner was listed on the electoral roll at her former council home at Vicarage Road, Stockport, for the 5 years after she married Mark in 2010. He was listed a mile away at a home he purchased in Lowndes Lane.

After neighbours mentioned Ms Rayner had truly been residing along with her husband and her three kids at Lowndes Lane, she caught to her story and acknowledged that she and Mark had ‘maintained separate residences’ till 2015.

On Monday, Ms Rayner mentioned of the Vicarage Road property: ‘I owned my own residence, lived there, paid the payments there and was registered to vote there, previous to promoting the home in 2015.’

Yet when she re-registered her youthful two kids’s births following her marriage, she wrote on their beginning certificates that she lived at 126 Lowndes Lane. 

If so, she might face a legal case for a false declaration on the electoral roll – and be chargeable for capital positive aspects tax on the sale of the Vicarage Road home, which made her a £48,500 revenue.

The thriller, which has led to her being dubbed ‘Two Homes Rayner’, deepened additional after sources instructed The Mail on Sunday that the council helped to pay for work at Mr Rayner’s home – not the one his spouse was listed at – to drop the kerb. 

The sources mentioned that, as one in every of Ms Rayner’s kids is registered blind, the cash was supplied beneath a Disabled Facilities Grant. Photographs from 2012 present that the work had been accomplished by then.

Last night time Labour confirmed the kerb work had been carried out at Lowndes Lane, however declined to enter particulars in regards to the funding. 

Labour sources have additionally indicated that Ms Rayner paid council tax at Vicarage Road – however didn’t say if she obtained the single- individual low cost of 25 per cent.

In all, three Lowndes Lane neighbours have now mentioned Ms Rayner lived there along with her husband and kids, and never at Vicarage Road. 

According to 1: ‘Angela and Mark lived there as a pair along with her son Ryan and their two younger kids after they obtained married, there was little question about that in any respect. I keep in mind when the loft was transformed, Angela described herself because the mission supervisor.’

When the Lowndes Lane home was bought in 2016, the property company’s photos confirmed a toddler’s bed room full with cuddly toys and a Thomas the Tank Engine toy. 

In the again backyard had been a trampoline and playhouse, and the loft had been transformed right into a bed room – which neighbours mentioned was utilized by her teenage son from a earlier relationship.

By distinction, sale photos of Vicarage Road the earlier 12 months confirmed a double mattress in every of the 2 bedrooms – and within the backyard a naked patch of overgrown grass and a patio with weeds sprouting by the paving slabs.

Several long-term residents of Vicarage Road instructed Mail Online final week that they’d seen Ms Rayner there solely as soon as between her marriage to Mark and when it was bought. 

They additionally mentioned that in 2014 Ms Rayner had described herself because the ‘landlady’ of the property – her brother Darren was seen residing there – when she threatened to take neighbours to courtroom in a disagreement over a smashed window.

A Labour spokesperson mentioned: ‘Angela Rayner has set out her household’s circumstances and has taken professional tax and authorized recommendation which confirms that no capital positive aspects tax was payable on the sale of her house.’

Every week has handed since we revealed Angela Rayner’s uncommon residing preparations.

She maintains that after she married in 2010, she remained within the council home she had purchased (beneath a right-to-buy coverage she has criticised) relatively than residing in her husband’s home. 

This is contradicted by neighbours, and by the truth that she re-registered her kids’s beginning in 2010 at her husband’s handle. 

Now we study the council funded enhancements which helped her kids at that home – not on the house she claimed to reside in.

It is an offence to declare the incorrect handle on the electoral roll. Ms Rayner has refused to clarify her preparations, however with even the BBC now masking the story – it took six days, however they obtained there ultimately – this place won’t maintain.