Unison trade union could be dragged into Rayner investigations

Unison, one of Labour’s biggest backers, could be dragged into investigations of Angela Rayner’s financial affairs after suggestions that police could request official documents containing her address.

The Labour deputy leader was a trade union representative before becoming the organisation’s chairman in the North West.

Ms Rayner was not an employee of Unison and would not have received payslips, but it is understood the union may hold other documentation that could be key to any police investigations.

Ms Rayner worked as a care worker for Stockport council before becoming a Unison representative at the council.

The trade union said that Ms Rayner would have been paid by the council for her work.

Unison said that it had not been contacted by Greater Manchester Police or HM Revenue and Customs.

A spokesman for the council declined to comment, citing the ongoing police investigation, but it is understood that if a request for documentation was received, it would hand over any information required.

Ms Rayner worked as a full-time Unison branch secretary at Stockport council before she was elected as an MP in 2014.

The trade union, which was formed in 1993, is one of the largest in the UK with more than 1.2 million members.

During the 2019 general election campaign, the Labour Party registered about £5 million of donations from trade unions.

Last year, it was the third biggest union donor to the party, providing a total of £1 million to the party

Ms Rayner is facing scrutiny over claims she did not pay the right amount of capital gains tax (CGT), broke electoral law and potentially committed electoral fraud.

Legal and financial information, such as the address on any official documents, are understood to be relevant to the inquiry.

Ms Rayner claims that she was living at a two bedroom house on Vicarage Road in Stockport while neighbours have alleged that she was in fact living at her husband’s property on nearby Lowndes Lane.

The question of where she was living is crucial to a number of claims being looked at by police, one of which being an allegation of electoral fraud.

Providing a false address on the electoral roll is an offence under the Representation of the People Act 1983. Ms Rayner is listed on the roll as living at Vicarage Road.

It would also determine whether Ms Rayner was liable to pay CGT on her property when she sold it for £127,500 in March 2015.

If it was her primary address, where she lived the majority of the time, she would have been exempt from a CGT on the sale.

If, as has been claimed by neighbours, she was in fact living with her husband on Lowndes Lane, she may not have been entitled to the exemption and could potentially owe tax of up to £3,500.

Police and Stockport council are also reviewing whether Ms Rayner claimed a single person’s council tax discount on her Vicarage Road home while allowing her brother to live there.

Stephen Watson, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, has promised to “get to the bottom of what happened” and officers are currently investigating what offences may have been committed.

In a statement last week, Ms Rayner said she was “completely confident” that she had followed the rules at all times but said she would resign if she was found to have committed a criminal offence.