Angela Rayner is giving up the rented flat she used as a base while working in London to move into Admiralty House.
Winston Churchill lived in the Admiralty House while serving as First Lord of the Admiralty for two terms, 1911–1915 and 1939–1940. It now contains government function rooms and ministerial flats.
It was also used by Ms Rayner’s predecessor as Deputy PM, John Prescott.
Asked in June before the election whether she planned to move into a stately home, Ms Rayner said: “I haven’t even thought about that. I love my little flat in London.”
A source close to Ms Rayner said: “She’ll miss that flat and she’s been renting it for years for her work in Westminster because her home is in Greater Manchester. But it’s become increasingly unsustainable not to have a government base in London now she’s the Deputy Prime Minister. It will free it up for someone else to rent out.”
Berkshire country pile Dorneywood was allocated to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves. It has been the Chancellor’s country residence dating back to 2007, having been occupied by Alistair Darling, George Osborne, Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt.
Ms Rayner is understood to not have been interested in pursuing access to Chevening, the country residence allocated to Dominic Raab when he was Foreign Secretary and shared with his Liz Truss when he later became Deputy Prime Minister.