A senior minister has denied the Government is in crisis after Angela Rayner’s resignation over her tax affairs triggered a major Cabinet reshuffle.
Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones said Sir Keir Starmer now has the “strongest team” in place after his former deputy quit for breaching the ministerial code.
He ruled out the prospect of an early election amid opposition claims that the upheaval could open up splits within Labour and collapse the Prime Minister’s authority.
A wider junior ministerial reshuffle is now understood to be taking place on Saturday as Sir Keir seeks to draw a line under the fallout from Ms Rayner’s departure.
Speaking to broadcasters on Saturday, Mr Jones dismissed suggestions that the rejig could delay the Prime Minister’s self-described “phase two” of Government by moving senior figures to unfamiliar briefs.
“It’s not instability insofar as the outcomes that we’re delivering are the same,” Mr Jones, who is also the newly appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told BBC Breakfast.
“The Prime Minister had been planning a broader reshuffle on a slower timetable, but he brought that forward because that is his decision as prime minister. That’s exhibiting leadership and control, not chaos,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He rejected the idea Yvette Cooper had been moved out of the Home Office because she was failing to get a grip on immigration, adding that she would be “brilliant” in her new role as Foreign Secretary.
Ms Rayner quit as deputy prime minister, housing secretary and deputy Labour leader after an independent ethics investigation found she had failed to pay enough stamp duty on a seaside flat she bought this year.
In a letter published on Friday, Sir Laurie Magnus said he believed she had acted in “good faith”, but that “the responsibility of any taxpayer for reporting their tax returns and settling their liabilities rests ultimately with themselves”.
The ethics watchdog said that Ms Rayner’s failure to settle her full stamp duty liability, along with the fact that this was only established following media scrutiny of her tax affairs, led him to consider the ministerial code had been breached.
Her sudden departure prompted the first major reshuffle of Sir Keir’s premiership, in which he sacked two ministers, promoted two and moved 10 into different roles.
Former foreign secretary David Lammy has been made Deputy Prime Minister and also takes over as Justice Secretary from Shabana Mahmood, who has become Home Secretary.
Former Commons leader Lucy Powell and former Scotland secretary Ian Murray were dismissed and replaced with ex-chief whip Sir Alan Campbell and former trade minister Douglas Alexander respectively.
A number of vacancies could now be filled as part of a wider reshuffle taking place on Saturday, including Mr Alexander’s previous brief and new Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds’ former role as City minister.
Sir Keir now faces the prospect of a party conference overshadowed by manoeuvring for the deputy leadership role vacated by Ms Rayner, who was popular among grassroots and seen as a bridge between No 10 and the wider party.
But Mr Jones dismissed the idea that her departure could expose divisions between different factions within Labour after Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said “splits” would open up following the scandal.
“Nigel Farage is wrong there,” he told Sky News.
“The Labour Party is not going to split and there won’t be an early election.”
It is unclear whether Ms Rayner will take severance pay following her resignation, but Mr Jones said it would a “decision personally for her, as opposed to the Prime Minister”.
Labour has changed the system so that any ministers who leave office following a “serious breach” of the code will be denied a payout under rules expected to come into force next month.
From October, it will be for the Prime Minister to decide whether the rule-breaking in question meets threshold.
Speaking to Times Radio, Mr Jones said: “Just as a matter of fact, in this circumstance, that is a decision personally for Angela Rayner as opposed to for the Prime Minister, which is how that will work when our new rules become live next month.”
