Angela Rayner’s claims to have not broken any rules over her property dealings have been blown apart by a Mail on Sunday investigation into her real ‘home’.
Labour’s Deputy Leader has insisted for six weeks that for many years her ‘principal property’ was a house in Stockport, where she claimed to live separately from her husband and children for the first five years of her marriage.
Now this newspaper has disproved her story by studying dozens of postings made by Ms Rayner on social media during that period showing her life with her children and cats at her husband’s address.
One of the photos from the property she claims not to have lived at was even posted with the caption ‘just got home’. In every case where there is a picture, the backdrop is the husband’s house.
It means Ms Rayner potentially faces a criminal conviction and a fine for a false declaration on the electoral roll – and under tax rules, married couples and civil couples can normally only count one property as their main home at any one time. The mother-of-three has refused to publish tax advice which she claims exonerates her – and has not shown it to party leader Sir Keir Starmer.
Tory MP James Daly said today: ‘These staggering revelations seem to show that Angela Rayner has not been telling the truth about the most basic facts. Keir Starmer has said he has full confidence in her but has refused to consider any evidence.
‘This is now a question about his leadership and whether he is happy to have a deputy incapable of being straightforward with the public.’
The Mail on Sunday first revealed in February that a new biography of Ms Rayner by Lord Ashcroft had established that she used the Thatcherite right-to-buy policy to purchase a former council house in Vicarage Road, Stockport, in 2007, making a £48,500 profit when she sold the house eight years later.
She faced accusations of hypocrisy because she has criticised the flagship Tory scheme for ‘helping to fuel the housing crisis’ by depleting publicly owned stock.
Documents seen by the MoS showed that Ms Rayner was registered on the electoral roll at Vicarage Road for five years after she married Mark Rayner in 2010, while he was listed at an address in Lowndes Lane a mile away.
When Ms Rayner re-registered the births of two of her children in 2010 she gave her address as her husband’s house.
The unusual arrangement enabled her to avoid capital gains tax on the sale of the former council house and by retaining the property for more than five years she avoided having to return some of the price discount to the council.
She could also have earned a 25 per cent single-occupancy discount on her council tax. Residents at Vicarage Road said Ms Rayner had described herself as the ‘landlady’ at her house, and that they rarely saw her.
In response to the story, an outraged Ms Rayner insisted that Vicarage Road was her home, saying: ‘I bought my council house back in 2007. I owned my own home, lived there, paid the bills there and was registered to vote there, prior to selling the house in 2015.
‘All before I was an MP. As with the majority of ordinary people who sell their own homes, I was not liable for capital gains tax because it was my home and the only one I owned.’
In the face of mounting scepticism, Ms Rayner – who expects to be Britain’s next deputy prime minister – doubled-down on her story, saying two weeks later: ‘Vicarage Road was my principal property…. my house was my house at Vicarage Road and I paid all my bills there, that was my home.’
But analysis of multiple social media posts on platforms such as Twitter back to 2010 show Ms Rayner relaxing at Lowndes Lane.
In a typical example from March 2014, she posted that she was ‘just back from work’ with a picture of her two cats, Woozle and Tilly, sitting on her lap.
The same sofa can be seen in estate agents’ pictures when the Lowndes Lane house was put up for sale the following year.
Another, from April 2014, read ‘just got home’ and included a picture of one of her boys playing against a Lowndes Lane backdrop. And one from 2012 said ‘I can cook’, with a picture of her children in the Lowndes Lane kitchen.
Our revelations come after a number of neighbours contradicted Ms Rayner’s claims about her living arrangements, with Sylvia Hampson, a Lowndes Lane resident, calling her a ‘f***ing liar’ for saying she didn’t live there.
Stockport Council has said it will review allegations of electoral or tax fraud, while local police said they would look again at the case following an initial decision not to investigate.
Her failure to release documents related to the affair has led to accusations of ‘double standards’, given how vehemently Ms Rayner demanded Rishi Sunak’s wife answer questions about her tax affairs just before her husband became Prime Minister.
A Labour spokesman said today: ‘Angela and her husband mutually decided to maintain their existing residences to reflect their family’s circumstances and they shared childcare responsibilities.
‘Angela has always made clear she also spent time at her husband’s property when they had children and got married. She was perfectly entitled to do so.’
Ever since we questioned the accuracy of her electoral roll entry, Angela Rayner has insisted she lived separately from her family and husband. Her Tweets tell a VERY different story
They are scenes of domestic bliss – a mother enjoying home life with her husband, three children and two cats called Woozle and Tilly.
Unfortunately for Angela Rayner, they also contradict her repeated claims that the house in which the pictures were taken was not her home.
The Mail on Sunday has studied more than 30 social media posts by Labour’s Deputy leader between 2010 and 2015, when Ms Rayner claims to have been living at a property in Vicarage Road, Stockport – rather than a mile away in Lowndes Lane with her husband and children.
Under tax rules, married couples and civil couples can normally only count one property as their main home at any one time, leaving her liable for capital gains tax on the sale of Vicarage Road. It is also an offence to make a false declaration on the electoral roll.
Of these posts, eighteen contain pictures; in every case where the background is identifiable it is Lowndes Lane – as confirmed by cross-checking the images with the pictures which were taken when the house was put on the market in 2015. Many of those posted are shown here.
Ms Rayner became an MP later that year and moved to her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency.
None of the pictures show her living at Vicarage Road, where she remained on the electoral register until 2015 – and where the neighbours describe her as the little-seen ‘landlady’.
The posts overwhelmingly contradict Ms Rayner’s claim that Vicarage Road was her ‘principal property’ and ‘my home’.
A post on X, formerly Twitter, in November 2012 – five years after she bought the Vicarage Road property and three years before she sold it – says ‘I can cook’, alongside a picture of two of her children who are standing on the black floor tiles of the kitchen in Lowndes Lane.
Another, taken the same month, reads ‘play-Doh!!!’ next to a picture of one of her children playing with the substance – with the Lowndes Lane garden clearly visible through the kitchen windows.
In March 2014 Ms Rayner posts that she is ‘just back from work’ – and sitting with her cats on a sofa which is in the Lowndes Lane pictures; In April 2014 she writes ‘just got home’, and posts a picture from the kitchen in that property.
Woozle and Tilly feature prominently – but never at Vicarage Road.
In October 2014 Ms Rayner publishes a picture of spider running across Lowndes Lane bathroom tiles, saying: ‘This bad boy ran across the bathroom floor as I was on the throne’.
A second post later that day shows one of the cats playing with something on the Lowndes Lane sofa. Ms Rayner writes: ‘I think my cat as got at least one of the #spiders,,,mess with me and ya mess with my cat!’
It is clear from the posts that her three children lived in Lowndes Lane.
In October 2013 Ms Rayner posts an image from her ‘teenager’s room’, which is clearly identifiable from the estate agents’ pictures as a converted attic in Lowndes Lane; in February 2015 she posts that her ‘boys are home’ – with a picture of her two youngest children in front of the Lowndes Lane tiles and cabinets again.
That same month, as she gears up for the 2015 general election, she posts an image of her doing an interview from the sofa at Lowndes Lane.
Other tweets make clear that she was living in the same house as her children and husband: in July 2013 she wrote: ‘My two adorable cherub like boys are a wonderful thing to wake up to as they scream at each other and fight over toys!’ She adds: ‘I can hear the youngest ordering his dad around like a servant! Who knows where it gets that from?!’
Another from the same year says: ‘Off to Bingo tonight to escape the footy’.
The evidence will put Sir Keir Starmer in an extremely difficult position. The Labour leader has said he backs Ms Rayner’s decision not to publish the tax advice, despite having not seen it himself: he said he did not feel the need to read the document because he trusted his deputy.
Ms Rayner has said: ‘Vicarage Road was my principal property…. my house was my house at Vicarage Road and I paid all my bills there, that was my home.’
She has also said: ‘It was my property. There was never any question about that in my mind. And I paid the bills there. I stayed there, my brother stayed there, he stayed at different various points’.
And in a longer statement she said: ‘I bought my council house back in 2007. I owned my own home, lived there, paid the bills there and was registered to vote there, prior to selling the house in 2015.
‘All before I was an MP. My husband already owned his own home independently and I had an older child from a previous relationship.
‘Our son was born just 23 weeks into my pregnancy and spent eight months in intensive care. He is legally blind. We mutually decided to maintain our existing residences to reflect our circumstances.’
Ms Rayner first appeared on the electoral roll at Vicarage Road in 2004 as Angela Bowen.
In January 2007 she bought it under the right-to-buy scheme for £79,000, having received a discount of £26,000; in 2008 her second son – her first child with Mark Rayner – was born; in 2009 another son is born. Both birth certificates give her address as Vicarage Road.
In 2010 the electoral roll listed Angela Bowen as living at Vicarage Road and Mark Rayner at Lowndes Lane – mysteriously, not with her but with her brother, Darren Bowen.
When Angela and Mark marry that September she gives her address on the marriage certificate as 80 Vicarage Road; he gives Lowndes Lane.
But when she then re-registers her childrens’ birth certificates that year she gives her address as 126 Lowndes Lane.
By 2013 she is still on the electoral roll at Vicarage Road – but is now listed as Angela Rayner; Mark Rayner and Darren Bowen are listed at Lowndes Lane.
Ms Rayner remains on the roll at Vicarage Road until 2015 when she sells the property for £127,500, banking the £48,500 profit.
In April 2016 the Lowndes Lane house was sold for £145,250. That same month the Rayners moved to a £375,000 house in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency.
The house was put in Angela’s name only, but in October 2022 it was transferred to Mr Rayner’s name only as part of divorce proceedings.
This weekend, The Mail on Sunday spoke to a former Lowndes Lane resident who said: ‘Angela Rayner definitely lived there with Mark. I remember she had an older boy, whose bedroom was in the attic, and then two children with Mark.
‘Angela was living there when we moved in around 2009 and was still there when we moved out in 2012. Their cars were on the driveway all the time .
‘She wasn’t just visiting, she lived there. When we left in 2012, she was starting to become more prominent in the Labour party and more well-known.’
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Glen Owen
