Angela Rayner ordered two beds costing nearly £7,000 for her grace-and-favour Government flat, it emerged yesterday.
The Deputy Prime Minister bought them in January, and they were installed on Valentine’s Day.
Ms Rayner lives in Winston Churchill’s old Westminster home, Admiralty House, which was originally built to house the First Lord of the Admiralty.
The previous resident was Michael Gove, the former housing secretary, and Ms Rayner moved into the property in December last year.
At the time, a source close to Ms Rayner told the Mirror: ‘It’s become increasingly unsustainable not to have a government base in London now she’s the Deputy Prime Minister.’
Admiralty House is also where the last Labour deputy prime minister, John Prescott, lived. He became known as ‘Two Jags’ thanks to his two Jaguar cars.
Admiralty House was built in the 18th century at the request of Viscount Howe, Admiral of the Fleet. It is one of several ‘grace and favour’ ministerial residences offered to Cabinet members – meaning Ms Rayner can stay there rent-free.
The house has been divided into function rooms and three ministerial flats.
Angela Rayner (above) ordered two beds costing nearly £7,000 for her grace-and-favour Government flat, it emerged yesterday
Ms Rayner lives in Winston Churchill’s old Westminster home, Admiralty House (above), which was originally built to house the First Lord of the Admiralty
The previous resident was Michael Gove and Ms Rayner moved into the property (above is a staircase within the flat) in December last year
And government-owned properties in the building were furnished with two new beds ‘to replace end of life existing beds’, according to Freedom of Information requests by the Guido Fawkes website.
This cost £5,132.44 plus 20 per cent VAT with an additional bill of £498.14 plus 20 per cent VAT for installation – a total of £6,756.70 or £3,378.35 per bed.
A Tory source said: ‘First we had John ‘Two Jags’ Prescott and now we have Angela ‘Two Beds’ Rayner. A woman of the people she is not.’
Last year, Ms Rayner was cleared by HMRC over the sale of her former council house in Stockport following a row about whether she owed capital gains tax.
A Government spokesman said: ‘One of the flats in Admiralty House is allocated to the Deputy Prime Minister in her official capacity.
‘The maintenance of Admiralty House, including the replacement of end-of-life beds, is managed and administered by the Government Property Agency.’
Sources said that the beds had been replaced as a matter of course to maintain the property.
