David Lammy takes over as UK deputy PM: Tax row prompts cabinet reshuffle; Yvette Cooper becomes foreign minister

David Lammy, left, and Yvette Cooper

British prime minister Keir Starmer on Friday appointed foreign minister David Lammy as deputy prime minister in a significant cabinet reshuffle following the resignation of Angela Rayner over a tax underpayment controversy.Lammy, 53, may also tackle the position of justice secretary. As a part of the reshuffle, dwelling secretary Yvette Cooper will transfer to the foreign, commonwealth and growth workplace (FCDO), whereas Shabana Mahmood has been promoted to the house workplace from the ministry of justice.Rayner, 45, a senior Labour Party determine and MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, resigned after admitting she underpaid tax on a brand new dwelling she lately bought on England’s south coast. She had additionally been serving as housing secretary.Her resignation adopted a fast-tracked impartial ethics inquiry, which concluded that she breached the ministerial code of conduct by failing to hunt specialist tax recommendation to make sure the proper stamp responsibility was paid.Starmer expressed his remorse at dropping his deputy Laurie Magnus, impartial adviser on ministerial requirements, knowledgeable him that Rayner couldn’t be thought of to have met the “highest possible standards of proper conduct,” and was due to this fact in breach of the code.“You were right to refer yourself to the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Adviser and right to act on his conclusions,” Starmer wrote in a uncommon hand-written letter to Rayner,as quoted by PTI. “On a personal note, I am very sad to be losing you from the Government. You have been a trusted colleague and a true friend for many years. I have nothing but admiration for you and huge respect for your achievements in politics,” he added, noting she is going to stay a “major figure” within the Labour Party.Rayner mentioned she deeply regretted not in search of specialist tax recommendation. “I would like to take this opportunity to repeat that it was never my intention to do anything other than pay the right amount. I must also consider the significant toll that the ongoing pressure of the media is taking on my family,” she wrote in her resignation letter.The resignation additionally follows a posh household association. Rayner revealed earlier this week that she has an association together with her ex-husband in regards to the care of their disabled son, involving one other property that is still a household dwelling.Under England’s stamp responsibility guidelines, anybody buying a second property should pay an extra surcharge. Rayner had initially labeled her new seaside flat in Hove as a main residence, topic solely to the fundamental stamp responsibility price. Because of the extra household dwelling held in belief for her son, she owed an estimated 40,000 kilos extra to the tax authorities than initially calculated.