Starmer refuses to say if he will sack Rayner if she is found to have broken ministerial

Starmer’s team won’t confirm when he was told Rayner had not paid enough taxpublished at 13:22 British Summer Time

13:22 BST

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

I’ve just been at the daily lobby briefing for political journalists – where we can ask questions of the prime minister’s team.

They have declined to say when Sir Keir Starmer was first told Angela Rayner had not paid enough tax. They’ve only said he was kept updated.

We do have a better understanding of how it got to this stage.

The Daily Telegraph first reported on Thursday last week that the deputy prime minister may have underpaid tax. Her team denied that – but on Friday evening she decided to instruct a KC to look again at the situation.

On Monday, that KC delivered a draft opinion. We have not been told what that said, only that he asked for more information. This could be important.

On Tuesday evening, a court order restricting what Rayner could say about her family circumstances was lifted.

On Wednesday morning, Rayner got the final legal verdict from the KC, which concluded she underpaid stamp duty.

We are told Rayner referred herself to the government’s ethics adviser immediately. But did she know that she’d underpaid on Monday? And if so, should her team have been more transparent?

Likewise, should the PM have robustly defended Rayner in a BBC interview on Monday if he knew she was seeking further legal advice? The government has said he was speaking in general terms when he said people briefing against Rayner were wrong.

But these questions are awkward for the government. This issue continues to be a distraction. And it’s likely to be so until the final report from the ethics advisor is published.