LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was expecting the results of an investigation which could decide the political future of his deputy Angela Rayner to come “pretty quickly”.
Rayner, who is also housing minister, is fighting for her job after she acknowledged on Wednesday she had underpaid property tax owed when she bought an apartment in the southern English seaside resort of Hove.
When asked what he might do if the report finds she has broken the government’s code of conduct, Starmer said he was waiting to see its outcome first.
“I am expecting a result pretty quickly,” Starmer said in an interview with the BBC. “Then, of course, I will act on whatever the report is that’s put in front of me.”
Starmer’s spokesperson had earlier commented on vandalism at Rayner’s property in Hove, with photographs showing the words ‘tax evader’ sprayed on an outside wall.
“The Prime Minister condemns this vandalism in the strongest possible terms. Whatever scrutiny our parliamentarians may face, it is appalling that their private homes should be targeted in this way,” his spokesperson said earlier on Thursday.
(Reporting by Sarah Young and Alistair Smout; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar)
