Angela Rayner is facing calls to shun her government payoff after quitting over her tax affairs.
The Deputy PM dramatically resigned yesterday following a standards report that concluded she broke the ministerial code.
She is entitled to severance equivalent to three months of her pay – around £17,000.
However, from October 13 the rules are due to change so that ministers who commit ‘serious’ breaches can be blocked from receiving payoffs.
Tories have pointed out that Ms Rayner previously backed withholding such packages when ministers are found to have broken rules.
Ms Rayner could be forced to hand over £40,000 to HM Revenue & Customs after admitting she should have paid more stamp duty on her new seaside flat.
She was meant to be subject to a higher rate due to her connection to a trust that owned the family home in her Manchester constituency.
Tax expert and campaigner Dan Neidle has suggested she could also be hit with a 20 per cent penalty for ‘carelessness’ over her tax arrangements. That would take her total bill close to £50,000.
Angela Rayner (pictured with Sir Keir Starmer) is facing calls to shun her government payoff after quitting over her tax affairs
Tory frontbencher Alex Burghart (pictured) pointed out the potential irony if former Housing Secretary Ms Rayner decides to accept the severance payment
Tax expert and campaigner Dan Neidle has suggested she could also be hit with a 20 per cent penalty for ‘carelessness’ over her tax arrangements
Tory frontbencher Alex Burghart pointed out that the former Housing Secretary the potential irony if Ms Rayner decides to accept the severance payment.
He wrote on X: ‘On 6th February last year whilst in Opposition Angela Rayner tabled and voted for a motion which sought to prevent outgoing ministers from receiving severance pay if they breach the ministerial code. She surely cannot accept that severance pay now.’
‘If she has any integrity then surely she must decline any severance payment,’ added Tory party chairman Kevin Hollinrake.
Meanwhile, Darren Jones, who was appointed as chief secretary to the Prime Minister on Monday, confirmed it would be Ms Rayner’s decision whether to take the severance pay or not.
He told Times Radio: ‘So we have changed the rules on severance pay for ministers that leave government because we have this ridiculous position under the last government where you could be a minister for a week and a half and then get a load of money for being sacked when the prime minister changed.
‘Those new rules come into effect factually next month in October. So just as a matter of fact, in this circumstance, that is a decision personally for Angela Rayner as opposed to the prime minister, which is how that will work when our new rules become live next month.’
Ms Rayner announced her departure on Friday after a report by the Government’s sleaze watchdog found she had broken the Ministerial Code by failing to ensure she paid the right tax on the seaside apartment.
She had bought the seaside property for £800,000 but failed to pay the correct amount of stamp duty, underpaying HMRC by roughly £40,000
Ms Rayner could be forced to hand over £40,000 to HM Revenue & Customs after admitting she should have paid more stamp duty on her new seaside flat
Rayner is entitled to severance equivalent to three months of her pay – around £17,000
Angela Rayner channels Elton John as she arrives at No 10 Downing Street on Tuesday
Angela Rayner’s seaside property in Hove which she purchased for £800,000 but failed to pay the correct amount of stamp duty on
The living room of elegant Victorian terrace offers sweeping views of the Hove seafront – a view the politician spent her entire life savings on
Ms Rayner’s new flat in Hove boasts a spacious fitted kitchen – but the former right-hand woman of Sir Keir Starmer could struggle to cover the mortgage following her fall from grace
She now faces potentially losing her Hove property as a result of her resignation, according to The Telegraph, as she will no longer be in receipt of her £161,409 annual salary and will instead be demoted to her basic MP’s pay.
Ms Rayner will now be taking home £93,904 and her £67,505 pay as Housing Secretary will instead be paid to her replacement Steve Reed, MP for Streatham and Croydon North.
Ms Rayner previously revealed she had used her life savings to cobble together a downpayment on her Hove flat.
She also sold her 25 per cent stake in the family home in Ashton-under-Lyne for £162,500 and funneled that in to the £150,000 deposit.
Official documents have revealed she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
Her monthly mortgage payments may be as high as £4,000, while her monthly income after tax will only come to £5,400, according to The Telegraph.
In contrast her take home pay each month when she was Deputy PM was almost double that at £8,100.
Ms Rayner will now also have to factor in expensive travel costs as she will have to commute to London to appear in the Commons from either Hove or Manchester now she now longer has access to her flat in Admiralty House.
While serving as Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Rayner also lived in a three-bedroom grace-and-favour flat in Admiralty House (pictured) – which used to be home to Winston Churchill
Ms Rayner also had £650,000 Ashton-under-Lyne constituency home (pictured)
Ms Rayner referred herself to the independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, on Wednesday, who delivered his report to Starmer on Friday.
Though Magnus concluded that Rayner had ‘acted with integrity and with a dedicated and exemplary commitment to public service,’ he said that ‘with deep regret’ she had breached the ministers´ code of conduct.
He said he had also considered evidence on other issues, including council tax and inheritance tax but had decided to ‘focus my inquiries’ on the stamp duty issue.
‘I take full responsibility for this error,’ Rayner said in her resignation letter to Starmer.
‘I would like to take this opportunity to repeat that it was never my intention to do anything other than pay the right amount.’
For days Ms Rayner had been battling claims that she failed to pay her taxes in full when she bought the flat in Hove in May.
As Deputy PM she had use of a lavish grace and favour Whitehall flat in Admiralty House.
She told the Cabinet Office her ‘primary residence’ was her family home in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency in Greater Manchester.
It later emerged Ms Rayner had sold her share of that property to help fund the purchase of the flat in Hove, which allowed her to be closer to her on-off boyfriend Sam Tarry.
In an unusual move, she sold her stake to a trust set up to provide for her disabled son who still lives in the property.
But tax experts suggested that she would still be considered to have an interest in the property as her son is under 18 – meaning that the Hove property should have attracted the punitive rate of stamp duty levied on second homes.
