The Labour Party under Andy Burnham

[brad465]

Angela Rayner loses something like £133,000 in annual salary but gets a one-off payment of under £17,000 under a scheme to be modified or abolished in October.

This article refers to what those rules will be:

Rule-breaking ministers to lose exit pay-outs

The rule change is part of a package of measures which will come into effect in October.

www.bbc.co.uk

Ministers who leave office following a "serious breach" of ministerial rules will be stopped from getting pay-outs from October.
The move is part of a package of measures the government says will drive up standards in politics.
Meanwhile, former ministers who take up a job which breaches post-government employment rules will also be asked to repay any severance payment.
As part of the shake-up, the existing watchdog, which has been criticised as "toothless", will be scrapped.
Conservative shadow minister Alex Burghart said the announcement amounted to "cosmetic re-brands of existing bodies".
The functions of the Advisory Committee for Business Appointments (Acoba), which vets jobs taken up by former ministers and senior officials to avoid conflicts of interest, will be split between existing bodies.
The government said a new Ethics and Integrity Commission would replace the Committee on Standards in Public Life, established in 1994, which advises the prime minister on upholding ethical standards.
It will be chaired by Lt Gen Doug Chalmers, a former military chief who currently chairs the committee.

Currently ministers are entitled to a severance payment equivalent to three months' salary when they leave office for any reason, regardless of how long they have been in the job.

This has led to outrage over payments worth thousands of pounds for ministers who were in the job for just a few weeks, including during Liz Truss's short-lived premiership.

Under the changes, which will come into effect from 13 October, ministers who leave office having served fewer than six months, or following a "serious breach" of the Ministerial Code, will no longer get the payment.

Ministers who return to office within three months of leaving will also forgo their salary until the end of that three-month period.

It will be for the prime minister to decide whether there has been a "serious breach" and to ask for severance pay to be stopped.

Meanwhile, the system for vetting post-government jobs is being strengthened so former ministers face a financial penalty if they seriously breach the rules, and will be asked to repay any severance payment.

Currently ministers must seek advice from Acoba about any job they wish to take up within two years of leaving office, a period during which they are also not allowed to lobby the government.

Advice from the committee can range from delaying taking up the role, not taking part in certain activities, or not taking the job at all.

However, Acoba has no way of forcing people to comply with its advice and cannot sanction former ministers.

High-profile examples of this include Boris Johnson, who has been found by Acoba to have breached its rules by not seeking advice from the watchdog before taking up columnist roles, but faced no penalty.

The Cabinet Office said the new Ethics and Integrity Commission would have an expanded role, including a new obligation to report annually to the PM on the health of the standards system.

The government said it was also committing to responding to all the commission's reports in a "reasonable timeframe".

Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden said: "This overhaul will mean there are stronger rules, fewer quangos and clearer lines of accountability."

In short, the 3-month severance pay award will not apply to any Minister who serves fewer than 6 months, and/or leaves due to a serious breach of the Ministerial code. A minister who returns within 3 months of leaving a previous role has to spend 3 months before being paid the ministerial salary again.

 

[Yew]

I don't see a third option here. Personally, based on her past conduct, I lean toward the second explanation. In either case, far from "resigning for a mistake" (which is the narrative she has tried to construct), these should be disqualifying for future high office and are therefore worth continuing to talk about.

Perhaps you might if you put down that axe you're trying to grind?

 

[Tester]

Under the changes, which will come into effect from 13 October, ministers who leave office having served fewer than six months, or following a "serious breach" of the Ministerial Code, will no longer get the payment.


Laurie Magnus, in his letter, said that he considered that the Ministerial Code to have been breached, but the word serious does not appear.

So it may be that the 13 October restriction would not have applied anyway.

 

[Purple Train]

Under the changes, which will come into effect from 13 October, ministers who leave office having served fewer than six months, or following a "serious breach" of the Ministerial Code, will no longer get the payment.


Laurie Magnus, in his letter, said that he considered that the Ministerial Code to have been breached, but the word serious does not appear.

So it may be that the 13 October restriction would not have applied anyway.

That would be my view. But for the new system to really work, a "serious breach" ought to be enshrined in legislation and for Laurie Magnus to judge, not the PM.

 

[Gloster]

That would be my view. But for the new system to really work, a "serious breach" ought to be enshrined in legislation and for Laurie Magnus to judge, not the PM.

The question of what is a ‘serious breach’ does not appear to be directly covered, but it does appear that the Independent Adviser can recommend what sanction should be applied. The decision as to whether or not to sack an offender is still the Prime Minister’s, but the Independent Adviser can also require that their advice to the PM is published.

 

[KevinBrum12]

While Sir Keir Starmer remains Prime Minister and Labour Leader I cannot see Rayner returning back to a Ministerial role. We should remember though we are only 14 months into a five year parliament. Despite the screeching from Farage, the next election almost certainly will not be until Summer 2029.

A lot can happen in that time. It gives Rayner a chance to rebuild her relations with the Trade Unions which soured during her time in office. UNITE consider her persona non grata now over her lack of interest in the Birmingham bin strike and not ordering her commissioners to give the bin workers the money. Unison, which represents local government workers had a dim view of her. Out of Government without the collective responsibility….she could go in the direction Tony Benn did after he left cabinet...and give the same treatment Benn gave his comrade when he loses.

Or she could decide she prefers being a champagne socialist and the good life in Hove, with regular appearances in the media. If I was a Labour member in Ashton-ubder-Lyne I would be pushing for deselection in those circumstances. The vox-pops in the constituency before the resignation showed the disgust with her and Labour.

If Rayner really wanted to put Starmer in the mire, going to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer, taking the Chiltern Hundreds and forcing a by-election I am not going to stand in would be a way of putting the boot in. Starmer very much looks like a Jim Callaghan but with a large majority.

 

[Moonshot]

I'm not pleased, put it that way. I expected more from a Labour government, and I expected a cleaner break from the tired old tropes that have been left to poison public discourse for so long. But I still firmly believe it's far better than the viable alternatives. Under the Conservatives, this would have dragged on for weeks and weeks and possibly not even resulted in a resignation - this is comparatively small-fry, as has been mentioned upthread, when compared to the antics of Zahawi, Jenrick, and Patel. Reform have been fighting like rats in a sack and that's only with four or five MPs at any one time. I can't really speak for the Lib Dems as they've had about as much mainstream airtime as I have.

Like I said, I'm no fan of the government. But it is by no means "same old, same old".

Reform will form the next government.....this one we have now is a lame duck and going nowhere

 

[KevinBrum12]

Reform will form the next government.....this one we have now is a lame duck and going nowhere

A lot can happen. Farage is no Spring Chicken and for Reform to form a Government they cannot rely on immigration. The General Election always gets a higher turnout than Council/Mayoral ones and there will be a lot more floating voters.

If things go as I think they will only current party leader who would still be in office fo face Farage by General Election 2028/2029 is...Ed Davey. The Tories will put the knife in Badenoch and her performance in PMQ's last Wednesday suggests it will be sooner rather than later. Starmer will probably chuck it in for personal/health reasons, if it is an election he knows from the regular internal polling Labour will lose.

 

[edwin_m]

The General Election always gets a higher turnout than Council/Mayoral ones and there will be a lot more floating voters.

Also probably a big tactical vote against Reform, as happened with the Tories last time and has happened with National Rally in France.

 

[Purple Train]

Reform will form the next government.....this one we have now is a lame duck and going nowhere

Can I have the lottery numbers too, please?

A week is a long time in politics.

 

[Tester]

Reform will form the next government.....this one we have now is a lame duck and going nowhere

That would be like voting for Brexit

Oh wait.....

 

[DustyBin]

One of the perks of being a Minister is in the event of misconduct, it's a lifeline in preserving your role as an MP. Rayner's far from the first to do this. Perhaps if we finally get much tougher standards holding both MPs and Ministers to account, this may change, or even better, several lacklustre MPs take the job more seriously.

Yes, it’s (perhaps surprisingly) difficult to oust an MP other than through the ballot box.

Would you say the same for MPs from other MPs for other parties?

Yes.

My concern with this is that the act was either wilful, or she is deeply incompetent. She was explicitly told to seek further specialist advice due to her situation, and ignored it.

The first possibility is that she ignored it because she liked the preliminary advice, thought she had half a defence, and that it would probably never be noticed. Why ask questions that might mean you pay more money, etc. Under this hypothesis, once found out, she lied, brought up her disabled son, and tried to blame her advisors (wilful dishonesty).

The second possibility is that she is so grossly incompetent that she was genuinely clueless about her tax affairs and the advice she received. Maybe she didn't even read the advice, or maybe she did read it and didn't understand it. I do know people like this, but they not people with responsible jobs. There is therefore an even bigger question of how someone this incompetent could rise to such high political office within the Labour party.

I don't see a third option here. Personally, based on her past conduct, I lean toward the second explanation. In either case, far from "resigning for a mistake" (which is the narrative she has tried to construct), these should be disqualifying for future high office and are therefore worth continuing to talk about.

Great post and well explained. This is basically my position, although on balance I lean slightly toward the first possibility.

 

[zero]

I had a non-straightforward stamp duty position a number of years ago (I would say of a similar complexity to Rayner's issue) and my conveyancing solicitor basically wrote the same thing to me as Rayner's conveyancers.

I had already investigated the position beforehand by reading the HMRC websites and was 99% sure I was correct. I spoke to my solicitor in person, who off the record agreed with me. However, if I wanted him to commit to that in writing, he would have to spend up to 3 chargeable hours (£800) cross-checking the relevant legislation.

I can believe that Rayner was negligently "confident" about her position and merely thought the advice to seek proper tax advice was simply a boilerplate text to cover her conveyancers' backs - which turns out to have been the case

 

[DarloRich]

I had already investigated the position beforehand by reading the HMRC websites and was 99% sure I was correct. I spoke to my solicitor in person, who off the record agreed with me. However, if I wanted him to commit to that in writing, he would have to spend up to 3 chargeable hours (£800) cross-checking the relevant legislation.

I can believe that Rayner was negligently "confident" about her position and merely thought the advice to seek proper tax advice was simply a boilerplate text to cover her conveyancers' backs

that is what I think happened. Easier to go for some conspiracy though! Most of us wouldn't spend the extra £££££ based on those circumstances. I am suspicious of anyone who says they would. I would spend the money if my solicitor told, not suggested, I take the expert advice.

 

[JamesT]

that is what I think happened. Easier to go for some conspiracy though! Most of us wouldn't spend the extra £££££ based on those circumstances. I am suspicious of anyone who says they would. I would spend the money if my solicitor told, not suggested, I take the expert advice.

Where does legal advice turn from a suggestion to being told? The ethics advisor report has the line:

c) in those two instances, that advice was qualified by the acknowledgement that it did not constitute expert tax advice and was accompanied by a suggestion, or in one case a recommendation, that specific tax advice be obtained;

That a distinction between suggestion and recommendation is being made to me reads that it was a much stronger in the latter.

The other thing to note is this isn't Rayner's first rodeo. There was all the fuss last year over whether she should have paid CGT on selling her ex-council house. If you'd been through that and being in the public eye, wouldn't you be extra careful to make sure there was absolutely no ambiguity in the taxation arrangements?

 

[michael8]

She profited from selling a former council property ? Disgraceful.

 

[DustyBin]

The other thing to note is this isn't Rayner's first rodeo. There was all the fuss last year over whether she should have paid CGT on selling her ex-council house. If you'd been through that and being in the public eye, wouldn't you be extra careful to make sure there was absolutely no ambiguity in the taxation arrangements?

Precisely. Even given the benefit of doubt (i.e. accepting it was an error), the whole episode demonstrates monumentally poor judgement unbefitting of someone in public office.

 

[Moonshot]

That would be like voting for Brexit

Oh wait.....

Indeed.....we need something a bit more radical now.....this current lot are delivering in a very underwhelming way.

 

[ainsworth74]

Yes, it’s (perhaps surprisingly) difficult to oust an MP other than through the ballot box.

Though we probably don't want them to be too difficult to be gotten rid of by any means other than the ballot box. Not sure we'd really be a democracy at that point if you could easily get rid of an MP without recourse to the ballot box!

That being said perhaps the recall mechanism could be a little looser on the criteria that qualify that would trigger a recall petition. Erskine May (Parliament's "Rule Book" for lack of a better term) describes the process thusly:

Most by-elections occur through the sitting member dying or becoming disqualified (for which see Chapter 3). A by-election may also be triggered through the Recall of MPs Act 2015. This provides that a recall petition is triggered if any of three conditions is met. The conditions are:

1. A Member has, after becoming a Member, been convicted in the United Kingdom of an offence and sentenced or ordered to be imprisoned or detained, and the appeal period expired without the conviction, sentence or order having been overturned on appeal.
2. Following a report from the Committee on Standards in relation to a Member, the House of Commons orders the suspension of the Member from the service of the House for a specified period of at least 10 sitting days, or of at least 14 days.
3. A Member has, after becoming a Member, been convicted of an offence under section 10 of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 (offence of providing false or misleading information for allowances claims), and the appeal period expired without the conviction having been overturned on appeal.

If either the first or third condition is met, the court that imposes the sentence or order in relation to the conviction must notify the Speaker.

Under the terms of section 5 of the Act, as soon as reasonably practicable after becoming aware that one of the conditions has been met, the Speaker is required to write to the relevant petition officer, informing them that a Member has met one of the conditions that make the Member subject to a recall petition under that Act.

The Speaker is not required to give notice in the following circumstances:

1. within the period of six months ending with the polling day for the next parliamentary general election;
2. when the MP is already subject to a recall petition process; or
3. when the MP's seat has already been vacated (whether by the MP's disqualification or death, or otherwise).

A recall petition is administered in accordance with the provisions of the Act by the petition officer for the constituency concerned. The petition officer has ten working days to set up and open the petition for signature, or longer if it is not practicable to do it within that time. The petition is made available for signing for a specified period of six weeks. The petition officer may designate a maximum of ten places at which the recall petition is made available for signing. Electors may sign the petition in person, by post or by proxy.

If the petition achieves the necessary number of signatures—at least 10% of the number of eligible registered electors in that constituency—the petition officer notifies the Speaker and the seat is made vacant from the date of that notification.

If a seat is vacated as a result of a recall petition, the Member is not prevented from standing in the ensuing by-election.

https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/4912/recall-of-mps/

I could see that perhaps adding some trigger that that is available to the wider public (perhaps if you can get a 1,000 witnessed signatures of registered voters in the relevant constituency that could trigger a recall petition?) but I'd be extremely wary of making it too easier to remove MPs outside of General Elections (or the current Recall of MPs process).

 

[edwin_m]

I could see that perhaps adding some trigger that that is available to the wider public (perhaps if you can get a 1,000 witnessed signatures of registered voters in the relevant constituency that could trigger a recall petition?) but I'd be extremely wary of making it too easier to remove MPs outside of General Elections (or the current Recall of MPs process).

The problem there is that political opponents of the MP could gather signatures from their supporters to get rid of the MP for no reason other than not liking them. One of the foundations of democracy is that a government with a workable majority should have the freedom (within reason) to get things done, and be judged at the next election. Otherwise as soon as they did something unpopular that they believed was right for the country in the long term, they would risk some opposition party trying to recall enough MPs to destroy their majority and force an election.

 

[Gloster]

Have you thought what would happen if an assiduous MP was to upset certain media magnates or their chums? TV, radio or newspaper campaigns criticising the MP, guides in newspapers and on TV as to how to get rid of this threat to democracy (= our profits), money pushed into sympathetic candidates, etc. Much as think that it is true that it is too difficult to get rid of lazy and incompetent MPs, we should be very careful.

To go back to the main purpose of the thread, we just have to accept that Labour were voted in and the rules of the game at the time of the election said that if they get a big enough majority they can stay for five years: they did, so they should be free to. Those of us who remember 1981 know how unpopular Thatcher was, but we were prepared to wait until the next election. (Unfortunately, Galtieri stuck his oar in…)

 

[Citybreak1]

Would the collapse of the money markets or poor results at the Scottish and Welsh elections not trigger an early election anyway? Im sure most analysts have said the next election will be 2027.

 

[ainsworth74]

The problem there is that political opponents of the MP could gather signatures from their supporters to get rid of the MP for no reason other than not liking them. One of the foundations of democracy is that a government with a workable majority should have the freedom (within reason) to get things done, and be judged at the next election. Otherwise as soon as they did something unpopular that they believed was right for the country in the long term, they would risk some opposition party trying to recall enough MPs to destroy their majority and force an election.

To be clear they'd have to find a 1,000 voters within the constituency in question, not just 1,000 random people, and that would trigger the recall petition which would require 10% to actually remove the MP. But yes that's certainly an issue!

 

[Magdalia]

we just have to accept that Labour were voted in and the rules of the game at the time of the election said that if they get a big enough majority they can stay for five years: they did, so they should be free to. Those of us who remember 1981 know how unpopular Thatcher was, but we were prepared to wait until the next election. (Unfortunately, Galtieri stuck his oar in…)

Would the collapse of the money markets or poor results at the Scottish and Welsh elections not trigger an early election anyway? Im sure most analysts have said the next election will be 2027.

The UK is a parliamentary democracy.

The only thing that triggers a General Election is the Prime Minister going to the King to request a dissolution of Parliament.

The only things that could push the Prime minister to request a dissolution against their wishes would be if they lost a vote of confidence or failed to pass a budget. This government has a working majority so that scenario is very unlikely.

I have not seen any analysts suggesting that the next election will be in 2027, who are they?

 

[Citybreak1]

The UK is a parliamentary democracy.

The only thing that triggers a General Election is the Prime Minister going to the King to request a dissolution of Parliament.

The only things that could push the Prime minister to request a dissolution against their wishes would be if they lost a vote of confidence or failed to pass a budget. This government has a working majority so that scenario is very unlikely.

I have not seen any analysts suggesting that the next election will be in 2027, who are they?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/27/market-meltdown-will-force-starmer-into-an-early-election

Panic in the markets will force Starmer into an early election​

​

Nigel said 2027 this week too

 

[Bletchleyite]

Nigel said 2027 this week too

Nigel can say what he likes but he isn't necessarily going to get it

As for the Telegraph, despite the classic "Torygraph" moniker that's getting close to being the official organ of Reform, so I'd take that with a pinch of salt too.

 

[Citybreak1]

Nigel can say what he likes but he isn't necessarily going to get it

The moment they change leader there will be calls for an election. Happened when Boris took over and Truss.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The moment they change leader there will be calls for an election. Happened when Boris took over and Truss.

That there are calls for one does not mean one will take place. Of course the Opposition would like an election when they'd likely win one - doesn't mean they will get one as they have no power, aside from triggering a vote of no confidence, to cause that to take place. And a vote of no confidence would fail due to Labour's majority.

 

[Citybreak1]

That there are calls for one does not mean one will take place. Of course the Opposition would like an election when they'd likely win one - doesn't mean they will get one as they have no power, aside from triggering a vote of no confidence, to cause that to take place. And a vote of no confidence would fail due to Labour's majority.

That is true but I expect many will join Corbyn’s new party

 

[45Fox]

That is true but I expect many will join Corbyn’s new party

Once Corbyn's new party is up and running it will be interesting to see if any major Trade Unions unaffiliate themselves from Labour and affiliate to his party.