{"id":707373,"date":"2026-07-23T16:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T16:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707373\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T16:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T16:41:14","slug":"angela-rayner-tells-bbc-she-will-not-repay-severance-payment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707373\/","title":{"rendered":"Angela Rayner tells BBC she will not repay severance payment"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lump sum, equivalent of 25% of the annual ministerial salary, is payable when a minister stops holding office. Departing ministers who are aged over 65 or are reappointed within three weeks do not qualify.<\/p>\n

The 2025\/26 accounts, external<\/a> for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government record the severance payment for Rayner.<\/p>\n

In her first interview since returning to government, Rayner was pressed on whether she would return the money.<\/p>\n

She told Matt Chorley on BBC Radio 5 Live: “No, my severance payment was given to me at the time, I had worked in government for a period of time and then I came out of government for just under a year.”<\/p>\n

She added: “I will be delivering in government again.”<\/p>\n

Rayner earlier said her criticism of the Conservatives over severance payments came at a time when there was a “revolving door” which saw ministers return to government “after 40-odd days”.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives earlier this week said Rayner had “quit in disgrace and took a \u00a317k payout” last year.<\/p>\n

The party added: “Now she’s got her old job back, will she return the cash? Or is it one rule for Labour, and another for everyone else?”<\/p>\n

Rayner’s departure last September came after the prime minister’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, said she had “acted with integrity” but concluded that she had breached the ministerial code.<\/p>\n

Sir Laurie said she did get legal advice when buying the property, but failed to seek further expert tax advice as recommended.<\/p>\n

In May, Rayner resolved her tax affairs with HMRC<\/a> following an investigation, settling \u00a340,000 in unpaid stamp duty.<\/p>\n

The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne said she had been “exonerated” of the accusation that she had “deliberately sought to avoid tax”.<\/p>\n

Rayner told Matt Chorley: “The situation I went through last year was really difficult, it was difficult for my family, but I felt I’d let people down and I never want to let people down, I want to fight for them.”<\/p>\n

Rayner also said she has “unfinished business” in government, including on building council houses and supporting local government.<\/p>\n

Burnham has said he wants to deliver “the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period”.<\/p>\n

Asked for details to explain what this will look like, Rayner said she would not provide an “exact figure” or provide a date for when she considers the post-war period to have ended.<\/p>\n

She said: “We want to aspire to get as far as possible and what we’ve done as a government is put more investment in that, the \u00a339bn for social and affordable housing grant funding that we want to get out the door.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lump sum, equivalent of 25% of the annual ministerial salary, is payable when a minister stops holding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-707373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707373","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=707373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}