Labour’s Angela Rayner has attacked the Conservatives for “obsessing” over her living arrangements while renters continue to face uncertainty over the government’s promise to end no-fault evictions.
The party’s deputy leader has come under scrutiny over the sale of her former Stockport home before she was an MP, with claims she did not pay the right amount of capital gains tax and may have registered to vote at the wrong address – allegations she denies.
Greater Manchester Police are now looking into the latter issue, which could be a breach of electoral rules, following a complaint from Tory MP James Daly.
But standing in at Prime Minister’s Questions on the day the much-delayed Renters’ Reform Bill returned to the Commons, Ms Rayner said: “I know this party opposite is desperate to talk about my living arrangements, but the public want to know what this government is going to do about theirs.”
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Ministers first promised to scrap no-fault evictions – or Section 21s – in April 2019, but agreed to an indefinite delay to outlawing the mechanism after a group of Conservative backbenchers, including some landlords, raised concerns that the courts were not prepared for the legal cases that could replace them.
A new clause being added to the bill by the government today would, if approved, order an assessment of the courts before any ban could be enacted. But it offers no timetable for when the probe would have to take place.
This has led to a backlash from campaigners, renters and opposition parties, who have claimed the government is “running scared” of their own MPs and leaving renters in “limbo”.
