Angela Rayner's tax 'hypocrisy' over jibe at PM's wife: Deputy Labour leader's taunts at Mrs Sunak return to haunt her as ex-Commons watchdog demands police investigation

Angela Rayner has been branded a hypocrite for targeting the Prime Minister's wife over her tax affairs – but refusing to come clean over her own murky property dealings.

Labour's Deputy Leader is facing mounting pressure to answer questions over the sale of her former council house that has engulfed her in controversy on three fronts since The Mail on Sunday broke the story.

Last night, a former public standards chief joined ex-Cabinet ministers in calling for transparency from Ms Rayner, amid claims she may have dodged capital gains tax, wrongly claimed a council tax discount and possibly breached election law.

Her refusal to release documents related to the affair has led to accusations of 'double standards', given how vehemently Ms Rayner demanded Rishi Sunak's wife, Akshata Murty, answer detailed questions about her tax affairs just before her husband became Prime Minister.

Even when Mr Sunak issued his personal tax return, Ms Rayner piled on the pressure – accusing him of trying to bury the news by releasing it on the same day as a crunch post-Brexit Commons vote. 

'Wonder why he's chosen today?', she tweeted.

Ms Rayner insists she has received independent tax advice clearing her of any wrongdoing but has refused to bow to pressure to release it.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also said he was 'satisfied' the advice Ms Rayner received put her in the clear – but then had to admit he had not even seen it, and still hasn't.

In contrast, Ms Rayner has campaigned vociferously for others to make their tax affairs public. When Mr Sunak's Indian-born wife was facing scrutiny over her non-dom status in 2022, Ms Rayner sent a detailed letter to Lord Geidt, then an independent adviser on ministerial ethics, demanding answers about the family tax affairs.

She also posted a tweet featuring negative headlines about the story with the caption: 'Rishi Sunak is laughing at you', tauntingly signing off with an animated emoji of a wad of money with wings, representing wealth.

Ms Rayner said at the time: 'A fish rots from the head. It is the Prime Minister's responsibility to bring this debacle to a close.'

Last year, Ms Rayner also campaigned for former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi to 'come clean' over the penalty he paid to HMRC, and in 2021 she urged Tory by-election candidate Jill Mortimer, who had lived in the Cayman Islands, to publish her tax returns 'in full'.

Critics last night blasted Ms Rayner for double standards.

Tory MP Alexander Stafford said: 'Angela Rayner's behaviour just reeks of hypocrisy from a woman who has been the first to lambast the Prime Minister's wife as soon as her name was in the news and who pontificates at length about probity and honesty.

'Sir Keir Starmer needs to stop being weak and tell his deputy to come clean. The public deserve that from a leader who wants them to trust him to run the country.'

Former Home Secretary Priti Patel added: 'This new level of double standards from a woman who would be Sir Keir Starmer's Deputy PM is astonishing.

'Her claims about her not profiteering from her council house sale are becoming farcical. 

'This shows that she and the Labour Party will have one rule for them and another for everyone else.'

And Sir Alistair Graham, a respected former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said: 'There clearly should be a full police investigation of the allegations.

'And of course if it's found she has breached the law then her political position becomes pretty untenable, particularly as she's continued to deny that she's breached the law in any way.

'Clearly, as she's Deputy Leader of the party, that would be a damaging political matter for Labour.'

The Mail on Sunday revealed a month ago that Ms Rayner used the Thatcherite right-to-buy policy to purchase a council house in Stockport, where she claimed to live separately from her husband and children for the first five years of her marriage. 

The unusual arrangement enabled her to avoid capital gains tax on the sale of the house a decade ago, and could have meant a 25 per cent single-occupancy discount on her council tax, worth £1,500 over five years.

If, as neighbours have claimed, this is untrue, and she was actually living with her family a mile away, she potentially faces a criminal conviction and a fine for a false declaration on the electoral roll.

Neighbours told this newspaper Ms Rayner had described herself as the 'landlady' at her house, and they rarely saw her.

Pressure on Ms Rayner increased last week after Stockport Council said it would review allegations of electoral or tax fraud, and the police said it would look again at the case, following its initial decision not to investigate.

The three key issues Labour's No 2 must address

Electoral Roll

It has been suggested that Angela Rayner may have made a false declaration on the electoral register about where she was living in Stockport. 

An official document shows she was still registered to vote at the council house she had bought in Vicarage Road, for five years after she married Mark Rayner in 2010. 

He was listed at Lowndes Lane, where the births of their two sons were registered. Under the Representation of the People Act 1983, anyone providing false information to a registration officer is guilty of an offence which could lead to a prison sentence of six months and/or an unlimited fine.

Capital Gains Tax

Ms Rayner has been accused of avoiding Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on the sale of Vicarage Road in 2015. 

It's a tax on the profit when you sell an asset that has increased in value. 

HMRC lets couples count one property as their main home and do not pay CGT when selling it. 

As Vicarage Road was claimed to be the main home, tax was not paid. But there are suggestions that for some of the time she was primarily living at Lowndes Lane. 

She bought Vicarage Road for £79,000 in 2007 and sold it for £127,500 in 2015, a gain of £48,500. 

Tax experts say Ms Rayner could owe around £3,500 in CGT on that. 

Council Tax

Stockport Council is reviewing whether Ms Rayner claimed a single person's council discount on her Vicarage Road property. 

She says the address was her 'principal property', although neighbours have said her brother had lived there. Those living on their own, or only with children, are eligible for a

25 per cent council tax discount. The Vicarage Road house was in Band B, incurring council tax of £1,213 in 2010/11, rising to £1,249 in 2014/15. 

If she claimed a discount, Ms Rayner could have saved more than £300 a year – totalling £1,534 across five years.