Rayner admits she underpaid tax on property, Farage slams Britain’s record on free speech in Congressional hearing

Angela Rayner admits underpaying tax in an interview with Beth Rigby on Sky News

Prime Minister, you’ve been accused of dodging a 40,000 pounds tax bill on your new home on the south coast. You said it was your main home while also claiming your constituency home in Ashton was your main home for other purposes. Do you just want to clear this up? What’s going on? Yeah, first of all, Beth, it’s been quite a distressing time for my family. I have a court order that was in place around confidentiality regarding my son, my family, and my divorce proceedings that happened in 2023, and therefore wasn’t able to give a full account of the circumstances of our complex living arrangements. That order was lifted last night. I applied to have that order lifted so that I could give people the information. In 2020, my son had an award and a a trust was set up by the court to deal with his finances as part of that award with a legal trustee, and in 2023 when me and my husband divorced, the decision was because that home was adapted to support my son who has lifelong disabilities as a result of that injury that occurred to him. Um, that trust was set up and they decided that they would take on the property so that me and my husband could have a nesting arrangement where we could provide for my child in our family home, which is our family home and remains our family home. So when I’m looking after the children, I go back to the family home and then when my ex-husband is looking after the children, he does, and it was done primarily to support my son with his additional needs and to provide stability for them during the divorce. And that was the arrangement that we put in place. I then went to purchase, took my life savings basically out of the property, the 25% that I still owned within the property, took that money out so that I could purchase with a mortgage the place in Hove, and I took, um, you know, advice on that, and I relied on. That uh legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty. Subsequently to that with all of the media reports that have been coming out, I took expert counsel advice on all of my affairs to ensure that everything was done proper and that expert counsel said that the advice that I received was inaccurate because of the trust. I don’t own the property, that is true. I only own one property that is mortgaged like most people. But because of the nature of the trust that was set up by the court that I would be liable to pay the additional stamp duty as soon as I knew that that was the case, I have alerted and referred myself to the independent adviser on the ministerial code to ensure that they can look transparently at what’s happened and also contacted HMRC to say that there is additional. Tax owing on this and that I’m prepared to pay that and fully comply with the HMRC as well. So the accusations that you didn’t pay enough stamp duty on Hove, they’re actually accurate, you didn’t. They are accurate, but they’re accurate in a different sense. I think the accusations were that I’d set up a trust or I’d flipped it to try and avoid paying it. But actually the complex area of the trust which the advice that I relied upon didn’t pick that up. The leading tax council who has subsequently looked at it has gone into that and has said that actually because of that it did remain my sole property and the trust wasn’t set up. As accusations have been made for me to try and flip. In your statement here, and it’s a very long, detailed statement, and it is extremely complicated, uh, you say I deeply regret the error has been made. I’m committed to resolving the matter, and I have referred myself to the independent advisor on ministerial standards. Just two more follows up for that. Um, did you consider resigning over this? I, I’ve been in shock really because I thought I’d done everything proper and I’d relied on the advice that I received and I’m devastated because I’ve always uphold the rules and always have done and always felt proud to do that. I, I feel, you know, that. It is devastating for me and the fact that the reason why those confidentiality clauses are in place was to protect my son who, through no fault of his own, he’s vulnerable, he’s got this life changing lifelong conditions, and I don’t want him or anything to do with his day to day life to be subjected to that level of scrutiny because it’s his. And my ex-husband, that that that’s not, it’s not fair on them, often my family are dragged in because of what my role is and what I do, but I try to uphold the highest standards and that’s why I’ve referred myself so that. The independent adviser can look at everything. He can look at all of the details of what’s gone on. You talked about how hard it was to disclose this. Was there a moment as a mum, not as Angie Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, where you thought, I’d rather just quit this than have to actually explain about my son who I’m trying to protect? Did you, did you think about just packing it in rather than having to do this now? I spoke to my family about it. I spoke to my ex-husband who has been. An incredibly supportive person because he knows that all I’ve done is try and support my family and and help them, but you did think about should I pack it in for the sake of the family, but. Your family are backing you to come out today and explain this. The number, the number one priority for me and my ex-husband has always been to support our children and do the best thing for our children. Just to be clear, you’ve referred yourself to the Standards Commissioner, you’ve contacted the tax revenue and said you could be liable for more tax. Presumably you deeply regret this because of. Potentially the fallout for you, do you think your position, Angie Royer, even though you’ve explained it, do you think it’s sustainable? Do you think you can carry on as particularly housing minister? Well, I made a mistake based upon the advice that I relied upon, that I received at the time, and a leading expert has now said that advice was wrong and I think. Hopefully most people can see if you if you rely on advice given to you by lawyers and you follow that process and then you find out that that process is wrong and that advice was wrong, I’m rectifying it at the earliest opportunity. People make mistakes, but I conducted myself in trying to do the right thing, and I hope that people can see that.