0:05 AM, 5th November 2024, About 26 minutes ago
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Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and her husband are earning £74,000 annually from rental income, The Telegraph reveals.
The revelation comes shortly after Ms Reeves introduced a Budget that significantly impacts landlords and second home buyers with increased stamp duty costs.
The newspaper reveals that the Chancellor is believed to receive more than £6,000 per month from two rental properties.
Ms Reeves, who lives with her family in Downing Street, rents out her former family home in South London for around £3,200 a month.
Her husband, Nicholas Joicey, a senior civil servant, has been letting his central London flat since 2011, which now commands nearly £3,000 a month in rent.
Together, their rental income is more than four times the average landlord’s earnings of £16,500 and double the average UK salary of £37,000.
The Budget also raised the stamp duty surcharge for additional properties from 3% to 5%, adding substantial costs for landlords buying rental properties.
Conservative MPs have voiced their discontent, highlighting the disparity between Ms Reeves’s personal financial gains and the financial burdens placed on landlords and homeowners.
The Telegraph quotes Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty as saying: “Having just announced a deeply unpopular Budget that has caused mortgages to rise, how does the Chancellor justify the £74,000 rental income of her and her husband’s London properties whilst living rent-free in Downing Street as their mortgages are paid for?
“It’s no wonder she abstained from the most recent vote on the Renters’ Rights Bill.”
Fellow Tory MP Greg Smith said: “Classic Labour party do as I say, not as I do. I’m all right Jack, now I’m going to pull the drawbridge up.
“Yet another Labour action that doesn’t pass the sniff test.”
Lewis Cocking, a Conservative MP on the housing committee, told the Telegraph: “By disincentivising good landlords entering the market, the Chancellor’s Budget will just make renting more difficult and more expensive.
“This is yet another way that the Government is failing working people.”
Critics argue that the Budget’s measures will discourage good landlords from entering the market, making renting more difficult and expensive for tenants.
The Telegraph also reveals that Ms Reeves’s rental property has an energy performance certificate rating of ‘D’, which will need improvement to meet Labour’s goal for all PRS to achieve a ‘C’ rating by 2030.
A Labour Party spokesperson told the newspaper that the Chancellor’s rental incomes have been declared in accordance with the rules.
