POLL: Should Keir Starmer sack Angela Rayner?

Sir Keir Starmer is facing pressure to sack Angela Rayner amid a row over her tax affairs. The Deputy Prime Minister's political future looks increasingly uncertain after she did not pay enough stamp duty on a flat she bought in Hove earlier this year.

A verdict is expected later today on whether she broke ministerial standards rules. The PM yesterday repeatedly declined to say whether he would sack his deputy, who is also the Housing Secretary, if his independent ethics watchdog rules against her.

However Sir Keir said he would "of course" act on the findings of Sir Laurie Magnus's probe following Ms Rayner's acknowledgement that she failed to pay a £40,000 tax surcharge on the seaside apartment.

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The advice she received is likely to form a key plank of Sir Laurie's investigation, after Ms Rayner said she was incorrectly advised that she did not need to pay the higher stamp duty rate reserved for second home purchases.

Sources close to Ms Rayner said a conveyancer and two experts in trust law had all suggested the amount of stamp duty she paid on the East Sussex property was correct and she acted on the advice she was given at the time.

But the conveyancing firm, Verrico and Associates, yesterday said its lawyers "never" gave Ms Rayner tax advice and were being made "scapegoats".

Ms Rayner referred herself for an ethics investigation on Wednesday, admitting that she had not paid enough stamp duty on the purchase of the £800,000 flat.

She said she had initially been advised that she was not liable for the second property surcharge because she had sold her stake in her family home in Ashton-under-Lyne to a court-instructed trust established in 2020 to benefit her disabled son.

But she conceded she had made a "mistake" after fresh legal advice from a "leading tax counsel" later revealed that she was liable for the extra duty on her new Hove flat.

Before then, she had insisted for weeks that she had paid the correct amount of tax.