Angela Rayner council dwelling tax row deepens as former aide contradicts her claims in electoral legislation probe | EUROtoday

Sign up for the View from Westminster e mail for professional evaluation straight to your inbox

Get our free View from Westminster e mail

The row over Angela Rayner’s earlier dwelling preparations has deepened as her former aide reportedly wrote to police contradicting her claims.

Former workers member Matt Finnegan, who made an employment tribunal declare in opposition to Ms Rayner in 2018, mentioned there was “no doubt in my mind that this was Ms Rayner’s family home” when he visited her at what she says was her husband’s deal with in 2014.

Police are investigating whether or not Labour’s deputy chief broke electoral legislation after Tory allegations that she might have given false details about her essential residence a decade in the past.

She was registered at a former council home she purchased in Stockport, however it’s understood Conservative Party deputy chairman James Daly has steered neighbours say she lived together with her husband at a separate property.

Greater Manchester Police initially mentioned it could not be investigating the allegations, however following a criticism from the Bury North MP, the drive confirmed it had reassessed data and launched a probe.

The Sunday Times reported that he instructed the police he “vividly” remembers her dwelling was elsewhere.

He visited her across the time she turned a parliamentary candidate at an deal with in Lowndes Lane, Stockport, in the summertime of 2014, in keeping with the paper.

“There was no doubt in my mind that this was Ms Rayner’s family home, where she lived with her then-husband, Mark,” his letter states.

“I remember it quite vividly because Ms Rayner was not at home at first and I had to wait for some time in my car before she eventually arrived. It was also memorable in that it was the first and only time I visited her home during the course of my voluntary work for her.”

Mr Finnegan beforehand left Ms Rayner’s employment with a £20,000 payout and non-disclosure settlement after accusing her of incapacity discrimination and unfair dismissal.

He had revealed a thriller about an bold MP identified to her workers as “the Diva” which contained lurid particulars that bore hanging similarities to the deputy chief of the occasion. Mr Finnegan has insisted the novel Betrayal was “complete fiction”.

Ms Rayner has promised to resign if she is discovered to have dedicated against the law, however mentioned she “followed the rules at all times”.

Sir Keir Starmer has welcomed the police investigation into Ms Rayner’s dwelling preparations and mentioned he had “full confidence” in her.

Shadow minister Jim McMahon dismissed the allegations earlier on Saturday as a “storm in a teacup” after defence secretary Grant Shapps accused Ms Rayner of “double standards”.

Ms Rayner beforehand steered that former prime minister Boris Johnson ought to resign whereas Scotland Yard probed claims of Covid rule-breaking in Downing Street, prompting requires her to step down whereas the police investigation continues.

However, Scott Wortley, a legislation lecturer at Edinburgh University, identified that any potential prosecution ought to have been launched inside a yr of the suspected crime.

Providing false data is an offence underneath Section 13D of the Representation of the People Act 1983, however the laws imposes a time restrict of a yr for bringing any cost. As the allegations surrounding Ms Rayner relate to pre-2015, this implies it’s unlikely that she may very well be prosecuted.

Magistrates lengthen that deadline in sure circumstances, however solely by one other yr, in keeping with the Act.

Mr Wortley described the police probe as “completely pointless”, saying: “Why waste money on investigating something absolutely time-barred? They would not do it for (Road Traffic Act) matters nearly a decade after it could be prosecuted.”

“It is not the role of the police to investigate something that could never be charged.”

Journalist Michael Crick has additionally identified that former prime minister John Major had been registered in 1968 at a home that he had allegedly by no means lived at, in keeping with BBC Newsnight.

Mr Crick added that: “Again, there was a big fuss, but no action was taken.”

A Labour spokesperson mentioned: “Angela has always made clear she also spent time at her husband’s property when they had children and got married, as he did at hers.”

“The house she owned remained her main home.”

“Angela looks forward to sitting down with the appropriate authorities, including the police and HMRC, to set out the facts and draw a line under this matter.”

Yvette Cooper instructed the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that Ms Rayner is “very keen to” set out information to the suitable authorities She mentioned: “It allows her to set out all the facts – not the sort of gossip, not the different allegations that we’ve had from Conservative MPs. “We understand this is the run-up to local elections, we’ve seen this before with the Durham case as well. “This is obviously about her family arrangements, her personal finances, and that’s really how it should be dealt with instead.”