“Whether it’s the anti corruption minister being investigated for corruption, the homelessness minister who evicted her own tenants, or the housing secretary who failed to pay her stamp duty, with this Government it is one rule for them and another for everyone else.”
Labour’s promise to restore trust in politics suffered another blow after Defence Secretary John Healey admitted underpaying almost £1,500 in council tax on his Westminster flat, only settling the sum once journalists began asking questions.
The senior minister, who rents the flat for work, should have paid £2,938 this year under the new second home council tax surcharge introduced in April. Instead, he handed over barely half the amount, and did so without apparently noticing anything amiss until The Telegraph came calling.
Mr Healey claims the shortfall resulted from Westminster City Council wrongly categorising the property despite him notifying officials of its second home status when the tenancy began last November.
A spokesman insisted the Defence Secretary had “fulfilled all his obligations as a tenant”, blaming the entire episode on “an administrative error” by the council. The full amount has now been paid.
The council accepted responsibility, saying: “There was an oversight by the council, and we did not register it as a second home. This led to an incorrect council tax notice being issued. We apologise for the error.”
But the Conservatives were quick to point out the obvious, that a Cabinet minister in charge of national defence apparently failed to question why his tax bill had mysteriously halved.
Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative Party chairman, said:
“Whether it’s the anti corruption minister being investigated for corruption, the homelessness minister who evicted her own tenants, or the housing secretary who failed to pay her stamp duty, with this Government it is one rule for them and another for everyone else.
“And now we learn the Defence Secretary underpaid his council tax and only settled it after a Telegraph investigation. This comes as the Labour Government is hiking council tax bills for everyone else across the country.
“Healey needs to come clean about what he knew and when. If we cannot trust senior ministers to keep their own tax affairs in order, how can we trust them to run the country?”
Reform UK’s Laila Cunningham, a Westminster councillor, added:
“As a Westminster councillor, I see residents chased for far smaller sums. Yet a Cabinet minister underpays thousands and only fixes it when journalists ring. It’s the same old story, the people in charge don’t live under the rules they impose on everyone else.”
The revelations pile yet more pressure on a Labour Government that has spent its first months dogged by personal scandals, despite promising cleaner politics.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves was forced to admit she broke landlord rules by letting out her London home without a licence, blaming her letting agents.
Angela Rayner resigned in September after failing to pay £40,000 in stamp duty on a flat in Hove.
Former homelessness minister Rushanara Ali quit after accusations she evicted tenants before relisting her property at a higher rent.
Tulip Siddiq stepped down as anti corruption minister after the PM’s ethics adviser said she had inadvertently misled the public over her political links abroad, allegations she denies.
Mr Healey, who owns his main home in Rawmarsh and Conisbrough, rents the Westminster flat for parliamentary business and claims expenses for it. He is expected to claim the additional £1,469 created by the corrected tax bill, something MPs outside London are entitled to do.
Despite the blunder, the Defence Secretary has not apologised. Allies say he acted “in good faith”, though that is unlikely to reassure taxpayers already bracing for Chancellor Reeves’s looming raid on property wealth in next week’s Budget.
For Labour, which vowed to clean up government, the latest episode prompts the same weary question heard again and again, why do the people writing the rules seem to find them so difficult to follow themselves?
Image: Copyright UK Parliament – Open Government Licence 3.0
