UK deputy prime minister resigns after inquiry into her tax payment on home purchase

LONDON (AP) — The United Kingdom’s deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, resigned Friday after an independent inquiry found that she did not meet the ethical standards required for government ministers over a recent home purchase.

Rayner, who admitted on Wednesday that she did not pay enough tax on her purchase of an apartment in Hove, on England’s south coast, earlier this summer, said the report found that she acted in good faith, but that, crucially, she should have sought more specific tax advice.

“I take full responsibility for this error,” she said in her resignation letter to Prime Minister Keir 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.”

In response, Starmer voiced his sadness but said Rayner had made the right decision.

“I have nothing but admiration for you and huge respect for your achievements in politics,” Starmer wrote. The handwritten letter signed off “with very best wishes and with real sadness.”

Rayner referred herself to the independent adviser on ministerial standards, 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. She said in her resignation letter that she also had to “consider the significant toll that the ongoing pressure of the media is taking on my family.”

In the UK, levies are charged on property purchases, with higher charges due on more expensive homes and secondary residences. Reports have suggested that Rayner saved 40,000 pounds by not paying the appropriate levy, known as a stamp duty, on her 800,000-pound ($1 million) purchase.

Rayner, 45, had sought to explain that her “complex living arrangements” related to her divorce in 2023 and the fact that her son has “lifelong disabilities” underlay her failure to pay the appropriate tax.

Follow The Gleaner on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.