The police are reviewing a decision not to investigate Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, over claims she may have broken electoral law. The move to “reassess” a decision not to launch an investigation earlier this month was confirmed by Greater Manchester police (GMP) on Wednesday after a complaint by the Conservative MP James Daly about the force’s handling of the issue. Daly, the Conservative deputy chair, had originally asked the force to investigate after Rayner had faced questions for weeks over whether she was liable to pay capital gains tax (CGT) on the sale of her former council house before she became an MP.
She has denied any wrongdoing relating to where she was registered as living after her marriage in 2010. The complaint to police from Daly followed claims made in a book by the former Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft, which suggested that she had failed to properly declare her main residence. Rayner insists a property in Vicarage Road, Stockport, which she sold in 2015 for a reported £48,500 profit before she entered parliament, was her “principal property” despite her then partner living elsewhere at the time. Government guidance says tenants can apply to buy their council home through the right-to-buy scheme if it is their “only or main home”. HMRC rules state married couples or civil partners can only count one property as their primary residence. However, while GMP said earlier this month that Rayner would not face investigation, Daly wrote again to suggest that relevant witness or documents had not been considered. He received a reply from Cheryl Hughes, a detective chief inspector, who said she had read a letter from him “outlining your concern over the lack of investigation into the matters you raised in your initial complaints to GMP”. “Following receipt of your recent letter dated 13 March 2024, I have been requested to review the circumstances you have outlined to reassess our decision around an investigation. I will update with the outcome.” A GMP spokesperson said on Wednesday: “We have received a complaint regarding our decision not to investigate an allegation and are in the process of reassessing this decision. The complainant will be updated with the outcome of the reassessment in due course.” Rayner said last week that the controversy about her tax affairs was “manufactured” in an attempt to smear her. The MP, who serves as the shadow housing secretary, told BBC’s Newsnight: “I’ve been very clear there’s no rules broken. “They [the Conservatives] tried to manufacture a police investigation. “They [the police] said there’s no issues there. I got tax advice which says there was no capital gains tax. It’s a non-story manufactured to try and smear me.” As well as keeping up pressure on the police, Daly has now also written to Stockport council to ask whether the local authority holds electoral roll information submitted by Rayner during the period in question and if it will be supplied to the police.