Leaving faculty aged 16, pregnant and with no {qualifications}, Angela Rayner has had a meteoric rise to the second-highest workplace within the UK – and a spectacular fall from grace.
Politics newest: Angela Rayner resigns
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Rayner admits she did not pay sufficient tax
Rising up in poverty on a council property in Stockport, Higher Manchester, Angela Bowen (her maiden identify) and her two siblings had been introduced up by her grandmother, as her mom had bipolar dysfunction. She has mentioned they’d no books as a result of her mom couldn’t learn or write.
She left faculty on the age of 16, with none {qualifications}, after turning into pregnant and has mentioned her son, Ryan, “saved me from where I could have been, because I had a little person to look after”.
The teenage mom, now 45, studied part-time and gained a qualification in social care, working for Stockport Council as a care employee.
She entered politics when she was elected as a Unison commerce union consultant after which convenor of Unison North West – the area’s most senior official, turning into a Labour Occasion member throughout her time there.
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Angela Rayner in 2016, a 12 months after turning into an MP
She married Unison official Mark Rayner in 2010 and so they had two sons, Charlie and Jimmy. Charlie, now 17, was born at 23 weeks outdated and is disabled. It’s the belief arrange for him that meant she believed the Hove flat was not a secondary house so she didn’t must pay extra stamp responsibility on it.
In 2017, her eldest son Ryan had a son, making Ms Rayner a grandmother on the age of 37. She gave herself the nickname “Grangela”.
She and her husband separated in 2020 and their divorce was accomplished in 2023. Since 2022, she has been in a relationship with former Labour MP Sam Tarry, with a break in 2023.
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Pic: PA
NHS compensation and a belief
Days earlier than her resignation, she revealed compensation was paid to Charlie by the NHS as a result of circumstances round his start, which left him with “life-long disabilities”.
A belief was set as much as handle the compensation and to make sure her son was correctly taken care of, and in order that he and his brother might stay residing of their household house in Ashton-under-Lyne as a part of a “nesting arrangement”, the place youngsters of divorced dad and mom reside in a single home whereas dad and mom take it in flip to remain there.
She mentioned she bought her stake in that house to the belief in January this 12 months and used that cash as a deposit on the Hove flat.
The Labour MP mentioned she was given authorized recommendation that the coastal flat didn’t must be thought-about as a second house for stamp responsibility however sought additional authorized counsel after media stories claimed she prevented £40,000 in stamp responsibility.
Her preliminary attorneys mentioned they by no means gave her tax recommendation and mentioned they had been being made “scapegoats”.
Ms Rayner gave a tearful interview to Sky’s Beth Rigby earlier than her resignation, telling the Electoral Dysfunction podcast she had spoken to her household about “packing it all in”.
MP to Labour deputy in 5 years
Ms Rayner rose up the Labour ranks rapidly after turning into an MP for Ashton-under-Lyne in 2015.
She was made deputy Labour Occasion chief in 2020 and was made deputy prime minister and housing, communities and native authorities secretary after final summer time’s common election.
A self-described socialist, “but not a Corbynite” (in her personal phrases), she turned well-known for calling the Conservatives “scum”, for which she finally apologised after initially refusing to.
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Pic: Reuters
Council home and donor controversies
Throughout final summer time’s election marketing campaign, Ms Rayner was investigated by Higher Manchester Police over allegations she misled tax officers within the sale of her council home in 2015 underneath the appropriate to purchase scheme.
She was cleared of any wrongdoing and HMRC concluded she didn’t owe any capital good points tax. She accused the Tories of utilizing “desperate tactics” in opposition to her and went on to win her seat with a 19.1% majority.
Not lengthy after turning into deputy PM and housing secretary, she was embroiled in one other scandal by which she was accused of failing to correctly register her use of Labour peer Lord Waheed Alli’s $2.5m New York house and being given garments value £3,550 by him.
She later introduced she would now not settle for garments from donors.
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Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner throughout a go to to a building web site in Cambridge. Pic: PA
Constructing pledge
One of many Labour authorities’s largest pledges was to construct 1.5m new houses on this parliament and, as housing secretary, this got here underneath Ms Rayner’s remit.
Sir Keir admitted in December the pledge may be “a little too ambitious”.
Ms Rayner was warned by a number of the UK’s largest builders there was not sufficient expert labour to get anyplace close to that focus on, however she has insisted it’s going to occur.
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‘Home constructing goal is achievable’
She additionally led the cost to overtake planning guidelines, asserting planning officers would be capable to rubberstamp improvement proposals with out permission from council committees in the event that they complied with domestically agreed plans.
The modifications can be made by means of the planning and infrastructure invoice, which was launched to parliament in March and is making its method by means of the Commons.
It additionally guarantees to unblock 150 infrastructure tasks, similar to gigafactories, windfarms and railways, whereas defending the atmosphere and nature by establishing a fund to assist builders meet their environmental obligations sooner by pooling contributions to fund bigger nature protections
Proper to purchase
In February, considerably controversially given she purchased the council home she grew up in, Ms Rayner introduced it might be tougher for tenants to purchase their very own council houses to assist reverse the housing inventory scarcity.
She additionally introduced “Awaab’s Law” – launched by the Conservatives in 2023 and named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died from damp and mildew – would come into power in October 2025, forcing social housing landlords to repair harmful damp and mildew in a set period of time and emergency hazards inside 24 hours.
In her function as deputy PM, Ms Rayner sometimes stood in for Sir Keir at Prime Minister’s Questions, one time going through Tory Oliver Dowden and saying it was the “battle of the gingers”.
