Rayner will ‘do right thing and step down’ if found to have committed crime

Angela Rayner has promised to step down if she is found to have committed a crime as police investigate claims that she may have broken electoral law.

But the deputy Labour leader said she was confident she had “followed the rules at all times” after Conservative Party deputy chairman James Daly suggested she may have given false information about her main residence.

The party has been dogged in recent weeks by Tory accusations over Ms Rayner’s living situation a decade ago.

The MP for Bury North is understood to have informed officers of neighbours allegedly contradicting Ms Rayner’s statement that her property on Vicarage Road, Stockport, was her main home and not her husband’s separate address, as some have claimed.

In a statement on Friday, Ms Rayner said: “I’ve repeatedly said I would welcome the chance to sit down with the appropriate authorities, including the police and HMRC, to set out the facts and draw a line under this matter. I am completely confident I’ve followed the rules at all times.

“I have always said that integrity and accountability are important in politics. That’s why it’s important that this is urgently looked at, independently and without political interference.

“I make no apologies for having held Conservative ministers to account in the past. Indeed, the public would rightly expect me to do so as a deputy leader of the Opposition.

“We have seen the Tory Party use this playbook before – reporting political opponents to the police during election campaigns to distract from their record. I will say as I did before – if I committed a criminal offence, I would of course do the right thing and step down. The British public deserves politicians who know the rules apply to them.”

She has rejected suggestions in a book by former Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft that she failed to properly declare her main home and dismissed the attacks in recent weeks as a political smear.

The unauthorised biography alleges that she bought the property with a 25% discount in 2007 under the right-to-buy scheme introduced by former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

The former carer is said to have made a £48,500 profit when selling the house eight years later.

Her husband was listed at another address in Lowndes Lane, about a mile away, which had also been bought under the right-to-buy scheme.

In the same year as her wedding, Ms Rayner is said to have re-registered the births of her two youngest children, giving her address as where her husband resided.

Ms Rayner has insisted that Vicarage Road was her “principal property” despite her husband living elsewhere at the time.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer welcomed the police investigation into Ms Rayner’s council house sale and said he had “full confidence” that she had not broken the rules.

Sir Keir has previously said the Conservatives are “chasing a smear” in raising questions about the deputy leader and people were more interested in “problems caused by this Government”.

Senior Labour figures defended Ms Rayner on Friday, with London Mayor Sadiq Khan saying he was confident she would be “vindicated” and shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband describing her as an inspiration and “exactly the kind of person we need in politics”.

But Defence Secretary Grant Shapps accused her of “double standards” and insisted it was “not acceptable to ignore it”.

He told reporters: “I think the double standards have been extraordinary, Angela Rayner herself has spent her political career calling people out for exactly the thing she seems to be doing now.

“It’s not acceptable to ignore it and it’s not acceptable for Keir Starmer to say he won’t even read reports into it.”