00:00Angela Rayner has resigned as Downing Street's No. 2 and Housing Secretary after a row over
00:05her failure to pay enough tax on a seaside flat she owned.
00:09Rayner said she takes full responsibility for failing to seek further tax advice after
00:13it was revealed she underpaid stamp duty on her £800,000 flat in East Sussex.
00:19Months before she bought the flat, she put her stake in her Ashton house into a separate
00:24trust.
00:25The accusations were that I'd set up a trust or I'd flipped it to try and avoid paying
00:30it, but actually the complex area of the trust which the advice that I relied upon didn't
00:38pick that up.
00:40The leading tax counsel who has subsequently looked at it has gone into that and has said
00:45that actually because of that it did remain my sole property and the trust wasn't set up
00:51as accusations have been made for me to try and flip or dodge tax or anything of that
00:58nature.
00:59Rayner, who was also deputy leader of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour Party, was widely
01:04considered one of the most powerful women in the UK.
01:07She represented a core working class voice in Starmer's government, having grown up in
01:12poverty and rising to the top of the Labour Party.
Comments