{"id":233719,"date":"2025-10-30T09:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T09:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/233719\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T09:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T09:22:07","slug":"uks-top-finance-minister-broke-housing-rules-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/233719\/","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s top finance minister broke housing rules \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The timing of the row is particularly awkward for the prime minister, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/angela-rayner-quits-as-uk-deputy-pm-over-tax-scandal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently lost his deputy Angela Rayner<\/a> over a housing tax scandal. His government is also about to preside over a tricky budget that could see it junk a key economic pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT.<\/p>\n<p>In the exchange of letters, sent to the media just after 11 p.m. Wednesday, Reeves said there were \u201cselective licensing requirements\u201d in the Dulwich Wood ward of Southwark council where her home was located. \u201cRegrettably, we were not aware that a licence was necessary, and so we did not obtain the licence before letting the property out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The chancellor added: \u201cThis was an inadvertent mistake. As soon as it was brought to my attention, we took immediate action and applied for the licence.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Reeves said she had contacted the U.K.\u2019s ethics watchdogs \u2014 Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards Laurie Magnus and Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Daniel Greenberg \u2014 to probe the matter.<\/p>\n<p>Writing back, Starmer said Magnus believed \u201cfurther investigation is not necessary\u201d as the Ministerial Code \u2014 which governs behavior of government reps in the U.K. \u2014 says \u201can apology is a sufficient resolution\u201d in certain circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>But the opposition Tories, already seeking to pressure Reeves as the budget looms, leapt on the row. <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/KemiBadenoch\/status\/1983634337632592104\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch said<\/a> the PM \u201cmust launch a full investigation\u201d and \u201cshow he has the backbone to act\u201d if Reeves broke the law.<\/p>\n<p>Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride doubled down Thursday morning, telling Sky News it wasn\u2019t \u201cgood enough simply to try and brush it under the carpet\u201d and saying Starmer needed to \u201caccept that her position is not tenable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The timing of the row is particularly awkward for the prime minister, who recently lost his deputy Angela&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3003,625,458,4176,59,57,58,1349,420,12174,467,50,1445,474,56,54,55,23753,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-233719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-angela-rayner","9":"tag-british-politics","10":"tag-budget","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-gb","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-greatbritain","15":"tag-insurance","16":"tag-keir-starmer","17":"tag-kemi-badenoch","18":"tag-markets","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-rachel-reeves","21":"tag-tax","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-unitedkingdom","25":"tag-vat","26":"tag-westminster-bubble"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}