Angela Rayner has pocketed a £17,000 ‘golden goodbye’ payout after quitting over a tax scandal, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Ms Rayner resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary last month after a sleaze watchdog found she broke the Ministerial Code when she underpaid about £40,000 of stamp duty on an £800,000 seaside apartment in Hove, East Sussex.
In opposition, Ms Rayner campaigned to ban departing ministers who breached the code from collecting a payout.
Her office has until now refused to say whether she would accept the £16,876 severance payment. But last night a spokesman confirmed the payment was ‘paid to her automatically in September on the basis of the standard calculation’.
New rules, backed by Ms Rayner, came into force this week that ban ministers from claiming the bumper pay packet if they commit a ‘serious breach’ of the code. Ms Rayner’s spokesman said the new regime would not have made a difference to her ‘automatic eligibility’ because, although she breached the code, it was not deemed ‘serious’.
But Tory MP Neil O’Brien branded the Labour MP a ‘total hypocrite’ and demanded she be stripped of the payment.
He added: ‘Having criticised these kinds of payments when she was in opposition, she now wants to keep the money now that it is her getting the boot.
‘As per usual, it’s one rule for her and another for everyone else.’
Angela Rayner has accepted a £17,000 ‘golden goodbye’ payout after quitting over a tax scandal last month
‘She broke the rules. She already didn’t pay her tax so now if she is going to be consistent with what she has said for years, she should hand back this taxpayers’ money at once.’
Following Boris Johnson’s Cabinet reshuffle in 2021, Ms Rayner posted on Twitter: ‘The Tory ministers who lost their jobs today will all get a £17,000 bonus on the way out.’
Her resignation has triggered an increasingly bitter scrap for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party which is yet to be resolved.
Ms Rayner’s spokesman said: ‘There is a world of difference between making an honest mistake and a severe breach of the Ministerial Code, and as the independent ethics adviser’s investigation concluded, Angela acted with integrity.’
