Now Angela Rayner’s CV is under scrutiny over how long she worked as a home help_Nhy
Angela Rayner became the latest Cabinet minister to face questions over their CV last night after conflicting accounts of how long she had worked as a carer emerged.
The Deputy Prime Minister’s recollection of how long she worked as a home help has ranged from seven to 17 years on four separate occasions.
Last night sources close to the Housing Secretary clarified that she had worked in the private sector from 1998.
She was subsequently employed by Stockport Council between 2000 and 2015.
But the Tories called on Ms Rayner to clear up the inconsistencies in her record publicly.
It comes after two of her Cabinet colleagues – Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds – faced scrutiny and calls to resign after making dubious claims about their previous employment.
Ms Rayner’s shortest reported stint appears on her Who’s Who page. It says she worked in ‘home help’ between 1998 and 2005, a period of seven years.
Who’s Who typically asks those it wishes to include to write their own entries and asks annually if the biography needs updating.
Angela Rayner (pictured) became the latest Cabinet minister to face questions over their employment history last night
Chancellor Rachel Reeves (pictured) faced scrutiny and even calls to resign after making dubious claims about her previous employment
And Ms Rayner’s entry has been updated as recently as 2024 to describe her role in the new Labour Government.
And in 2014, on her candidacy page prior to becoming the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, she said: ‘My first job was as a carer, looking after elderly people in their homes.
‘I stayed in that profession for almost a decade and experienced the conditions that often make headlines today – that’s why I joined a trade union.’
But in a 2020 post on Facebook uncovered by political website Guido Fawkes, she claimed that she had spent 14 years as a ‘home care worker’ contracted to Stockport Council.
Posting an image with a former colleague, Ms Rayner wrote: ‘Exactly five years ago tonight after 14 years service in local government as a home care worker l left Stockport Council.’
This would indicate she stopped working as a carer in 2015.
And yet last year amid furore over her sale of her council house in Stockport in 2015, she said: ‘At the time of the sale of the house, I was a home carer and it was my home’ – suggesting she had spent 17 years in the job.
Sources close to the Deputy Prime Minister said that during her time at the Stockport Council, she was elected to two trade union roles at Unison – assistant branch secretary in 2005 and branch secretary in 2015 – but her permanent and substantive role remained as a home help. Prior to joining the council she had begun work as a carer in 1998 – in the private sector.
The Deputy Prime Minister’s recollection of how long she worked as a home help for Stockport Council ranged from seven to 17 years across four different statements
The Chancellor was revealed to have made a series of dubious claims on her CV and Who’s Who entry
The emergence of these conflicting accounts came just days after the Business Secretary was rebuked by a legal watchdog for wrongly claiming to be a solicitor.
Mr Reynolds never qualified as he quit his training post early to become an MP, prompting the Solicitors Regulation Authority to write to him last month telling him to correct the error in his CV on LinkedIn.
Meanwhile, the Chancellor was revealed to have made a series of dubious claims on her CV and Who’s Who entry, inflating her time at the Bank of England and claiming she had written for a renowned economic journal.
She also wrongly claimed to have been an economist during her time at Halifax Bank of Scotland from 2006 to 2009, later updating her online CV to say she worked in ‘retail banking’.
Kevin Hollinrake, Conservative spokesman for levelling up, housing and communities, said: ‘These inconsistencies in the Deputy Prime Minister’s employment history raise serious questions that need to be answered.
‘The public rightly expects transparency from those in government and conflicting accounts over something as fundamental as career experience only serve to erode trust.
‘Without a clear and honest explanation, this risks becoming yet another credibility crisis for the Labour Cabinet.
‘The Prime Minister needs to get a grip of this and when he’s established the truth make a full explanation of what is going on to the British people.’
