Labour has launched a patronising defence of Angela Rayner for her “working class” background. They should be gunning for a different target: the insidious tax that’s caused her so much trouble, says Alys Denby
Being working class is, if you’re to believe the Labour front bench, a reasonable excuse for tax avoidance. Keir Starmer stood by his deputy – who referred herself to the independent advisor on ministerial standards after admitting she dodged £40,000 of tax on a property purchase – patting her on the shoulder at PMQs and saying he was proud that she had come from “a working class background”.
Pathetic
It’s pathetic stuff – especially when one of Angela Rayner’s catchphrases when the Conservatives were in government was “one rule for them, another for everyone else”. The Deputy Prime Minister’s childhood circumstances are as irrelevant to her current tax affairs as Nadhim Zahawi’s status as refugee from Iraq were when he made a “mistake” in his returns (albeit over a much higher sum which he went to greater efforts to hide).
The Deputy Prime Minister clearly has a difficult family situation which somehow necessitates tax arrangements as apparently complex as those of any non-dom. But class is not an index of morality. Rayner’s tax avoidance isn’t purer and more noble than anyone else’s tax avoidance just because she grew up in a council house – whatever this Labour government might think.
But let’s not forget the real villain of this piece: stamp duty. Surely the worst tax on the statute book, stamp duty prevents people moving to more economically productive areas, where house prices tend to be higher, and traps people in homes that no longer suit their needs. It reduces transactions, which in turn dampens housebuilding, and stands in the way of aspiration. Angela Rayner’s inevitable replacement wants to burnish her legacy and build the 1.5m homes she’s promised, they should abolish the tax that’s caused her so much trouble. There’s no excuse not to.
Alys Denby is opinion and features of City AM