GMP chief constable says investigation into Angela Rayner house row will be 'fair and impartial'

Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson has said the investigation into Angela Rayner will be 'fair and impartial'.

The deputy Labour leader is being investigated over whether the house she once lived in Stockport from 2010 was her main residence and whether she may have avoided tax when she sold it.

The row has seen the Ashton-under-Lyne MP face questions over whether she owed tax on the house that she sold in 2015, and registered to vote at the correct address.

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Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is now investigating, following a request from Conservative deputy chair James Daly. However, Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has called claims a “smear”.

Chief Constable Stephen Watson has since defended the decision to investigate the Labour party deputy leader, vowing it would be done 'fairly and impartially' to establish whether 'culpability is proven or otherwise'.

Watson told the Guardian that a letter from Conservative deputy chair James Daly led to GMP conducting the investigation. The force had previously opted not to probe the claims.

He told the newspaper: “We then subsequently received a letter, it’s a matter of record, from James Daly. The information within our letter caused us to reassess whether in fact an investigation was necessary. That is now ongoing.

"Where crimes are reported to us or potential crimes are reported to us, we have a process of assessing what we know, what we think we know and what is being asserted by others.”

In Lord Ashcroft's book Red Queen? The Unauthorised Biography of Angela Rayner, he alleges that the MP bought her former council house, in Vicarage Road in Stockport, with a 25 per cent discount in 2007 under right-to-buy, a scheme introduced by former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1980. The former carer is said to have made a £48,500 profit when selling the house eight years later.

An article in the Mail on Sunday (MoS) claimed documents show Ms Rayner was registered on the electoral roll at her former council house for five years after she married Mark Rayner in 2010. Government guidance says that a tenant can apply to buy their council home through the right-to-buy scheme if it is their “only or main home”. Her husband was listed at another address in Lowndes Lane, about a mile away, which had also been bought under the right-to-buy scheme.

Ms Rayner said she didn't pay Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on the profit, because it was the only home she owned. The Ashton-under-Lyne MP denies any wrongdoing following the claims and insists she consulted tax experts when the sale went through in 2015.

Asked by The Guardian if there was a trend of politicians trying to involve the police to undermine their rivals, Watson said: “Not particularly … people may assert that … my job is a simple one … We investigate allegations of crime.

“We do so fairly, impartially. And we go where the evidence leads us. Of course, we operate in a system and one always has to be careful that we’re not drawn into political spats. We should just simply play that stuff with a straight bat. Ultimately, of course people have a responsibility as to how they conduct themselves and we do too.”