BREAKING: BBC Breakfast HALTS Broadcast to Deliver HEARTBREAKING ANNOUNCEMENT from Angela Rayner

BBC Breakfast

Angela Rayner has “no choice but to step down” after admitting she underpaid stamp duty on her £800,000 Hove flat. Though she has prime minister Keir Starmer’s backing, today BBC Breakfast delivered a major blow to the deputy PM as Conservative Party chair Kevin Hollinrake said she “has to resign”.

Appearing via videolink from Westminster, Hollinrake said: “We do think Angela Rayner has to resign. This is the housing secretary, the rules are very clear. In fact they’re very clear on the HMRC website. You have a responsibility to manage your own affairs, take reasonable care when paying your tax.

“I think it’s very clear that both Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner have been very very critical of others who engage in tax avoidance, which is lawful, but nevertheless they consider it immoral and I have a certain sympathy with that.

“This goes even beyond tax avoidance. I think when you stand in this position and put yourself as a paragon of virtue in these things – particularly at a time when other people are having to tighten their belts and are facing increased taxation today and possibly tomorrow in terms of more property taxes, which is largely the responsibility of Angela Rayner – I don’t think she has any other choice other than to step down.”

Weekly Cabinet Meeting in London

Rayner says she has contacted HMRC to work out the tax she needs to pay, and referred herself to be investigated by Starmer’s standards adviser. Starmer, meanwhile, insisted he was “very proud to sit alongside” her at PMQs.

Reports mounted that she had saved £40,000 in stamp duty on her flat in East Sussex as she did not pay the higher rate reserved for additional home purchases.

Rayner also has a family home in Ashton-under-Lyne, which she has put into a trust for her disabled son and removed her name from the deeds. But the nature of the trust, according to tax experts, meant her Hove flat could not be treated as her only property as she or her children can still benefit from living in the Ashton home, where she still pays council tax.