𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Bridget Phillipson has declined to say whether Angela Rayner would still be Deputy Prime Minister at Christmas. The Education Secretary was quizzed about Ms Rayner’s future in the role while appearing on morning broadcast rounds on Thursday.

It comes as Ms Rayner admitted to underpaying stamp duty on her third home, an £800,000 pad in Hove. In a tearful interview with Sky News, she said she had considered resigning over the issue.

Asked whether Ms Rayner would still be in the role, Ms Phillipson told LBC she would not “speculate on or pre-judge” the outcome of an investigation by the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser.

She said: “We’ve got a process that’s under way with the independent adviser. I’m not going to get into hypotheticals or speculate. I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m just not going to do it. That process will run its course.”

Ms Rayner received “final legal advice” on her tax affairs on Wednesday but Ms Phillipson would not say when the Prime Minister was aware his deputy had underpaid tax.

Asked whether the Prime Minister had known Ms Rayner had underpaid tax on Monday, Ms Phillipson said: “The Deputy Prime Minister has been clear for some time that she believed she had acted in good faith, that she had paid what was required of her through that house purchase.

“It then became clear subsequently that that wasn’t the case, that additional stamp duty was owed.

“That was following new, fresh legal advice, but as I say there were limitations on what could be discussed given the existence of a court order that was there to protect her family and to protect her son.”

Ms Rayner referred herself to the Prime Minister’s independent ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus, something the PM described as “the right thing to do”.

She has also said she is “working with expert lawyers and with HMRC to resolve the matter and pay what is due”.

The Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Housing Secretary, said she had received inaccurate legal advice that led her to underpay tax when buying a flat in Hove in May.

She has been under pressure after media reports claimed she saved £40,000 in stamp duty on the property because she removed her name from the deeds of a family home in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency, classifying the Hove flat as her only property despite still spending time at the family house.

Ms Rayner said in a statement on Wednesday she had taken legal advice when she bought the south coast flat, which suggested she was “liable to pay standard stamp duty”, but had then sought “further advice from a leading tax counsel” after headlines about the arrangement.

She learned that the initial advice had been inaccurate and she was liable to pay additional stamp duty.

That is because she had put her stake in her constituency home in Ashton into a trust set up in 2020 for her disabled son.

Tax experts said the Hove property could not be treated as her only residence because of the nature of the trust.

Conservative party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said her explanation “cannot withstand scrutiny”, as he wrote to HMRC calling for a tax evasion investigation.

Mr Hollinrake also called on the tax authority to “consider the application of a penalty for tax evasion”, which could be as much as the full amount Ms Rayner is said to have saved – £40,000.