Angela Rayner has admitted she underpaid stamp duty when buying her £800,000 flat in Hove, as the prime minister gave her his backing.

The deputy prime minister and housing secretary said arrangements on her family home in Greater Manchester meant she should have paid a higher rate.

She denied she had tried to dodge the extra tax, blaming the “mistake” on initial legal advice that failed to “properly take account” of the situation.

Sir Keir Starmer stood by his deputy at Prime Minister’s Questions, saying he was “very proud to sit alongside” her.

But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called on him to sack her, calling her position “untenable”.

Rayner says she has now contacted HMRC to work out the tax she needs to pay, and referred herself for investigation by the PM’s standards adviser.

She has been under mounting pressure in recent weeks after reports she had saved £40,000 in stamp duty on the East Sussex flat by not paying the higher rate reserved for additional home purchases.

Her admission of an extra tax liability is damaging for the deputy prime minister, who was prominent in attacking the conduct of Tory ministers before Labour took office last year.

It also presents a political headache for Sir Keir, with Rayner – also Labour’s deputy leader – providing a key link to the left of the party and the unions upon which it depends for support.

The Conservatives have also sought to highlight that Labour raised the higher stamp duty rate from an extra 3% to 5% at last year’s Budget.

In a statement, Rayner confirmed she had paid the standard rate of stamp duty when buying the flat in May, after receiving legal advice.

She added that she had part-funded the purchase by selling her remaining stake in her family home in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, which she shares with her ex-husband and family.

Some of her interest in the home had already been sold following her divorce to a court-instructed trust previously set up to help fund the care for her son, who has lifelong disabilities, she said.

The arrangement had been designed to give him “security of knowing the home is his, allowing him to continue to live in the home he feels safe in,” she added, and was “a standard practice in circumstances like ours”.

But fresh legal advice revealed “complex deeming provisions” in the trust meant she should have paid the higher stamp duty rate on the purchase of the Hove flat, she said.

“I acknowledge that due to my reliance on advice from lawyers which did not properly take account of these provisions, I did not pay the appropriate stamp duty at the time of the purchase,” she added.

“I deeply regret the error that has been made. I am committed to resolving this matter fully and providing the transparency that public service demands.”

Downing Street has yet to set out the terms of reference for the inquiry that will now take place by Sir Laurie Magnus, the PM’s adviser on ministerial interests.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir told MPs that Rayner had “explained her personal circumstances in detail”.

“I know from speaking at length to the deputy prime minister just how difficult that decision was for her.

“She has now referred herself to the independent adviser. That is the right thing to do,” he added.

But speaking to reporters, Kemi Badenoch said: “If the prime minister had a backbone, then he should have sacked her already.

“If you are the deputy prime minister helping to set tax policy, if you are the housing secretary deciding where people are going to live [and] how much that’s going to cost, then you need to get your own affairs in order,” she said.

“Of course we understand that people have different circumstances, and difficult personal circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that you should not follow the law.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Rayner’s position “may well become untenable” if the investigation concludes she has broken ministerial rules.

But he added: “As a parent of a disabled child, I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son’s care after we have gone.

“So I can completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here.”

The existence of the trust had not previously been known, and Rayner said she had been prevented from sharing more details due to a court order that was lifted on Tuesday after she successfully applied to have it waived.

Asked whether she had thought about resigning instead of disclosing details about her son, she told Sky News: “I spoke to my family about it.”

“I spoke to my ex-husband, who has been an incredibly supportive person because he knows that all I’ve done is try and support my family and help them.

“The number one priority for me and my ex-husband has always been to support our children and do the best thing for our children.”

Rayner has not said at what point she took the further additional legal advice that revealed her additional tax liability.

As recently as Friday, the deputy prime minister had insisted she had paid the “relevant duty” on the Hove property.

Sir Keir publicly backed his deputy on Monday, adding she had “had people briefing against her and talking her down over and over again”.

No 10 has not said when the PM was informed about Rayner’s underpayment or whether he had seen the legal advice.

The Tories have also questioned whether Rayner’s grace-and-favour flat in Admiralty House in central London should be her main home for council tax purposes, instead of her Ashton-under-Lyne home.

The Cabinet Office has previously said it was a “longstanding principle” that the government covers council tax on official residences where they are used by ministers as a second home.

In her statement, Rayner said the house in Ashton-under-Lyne remained her “family home”, where she is registered for most official and financial purposes, including credit cards, and kept the “majority of my possessions”.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will achieve all its objectives by force if Ukraine does not agree to a deal.

“It seems to me that if common sense prevails, it will be possible to agree on an acceptable solution to end this conflict,” Putin said. “If not, then we will have to resolve all our tasks militarily.”

He praised the “sincere desire” by Donald Trump to find a solution – a day after the US president said he was “disappointed” in Putin, following Russia’s attacks in Ukraine since their Alaska summit.

Trump has tried to persuade Putin to meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, but the Russian leader has not agreed to do so.

“I have never ruled out the possibility of such a meeting. But is there any point? Let’s see,” he said.

He added that any such meeting required preparation in advance to yield results, and that Zelensky could always go to Moscow to see him – a “knowingly unacceptable” idea, as Ukraine’s foreign minister was quick to point out.

Ukraine’s president has been highlighting Putin’s refusal to meet as a way of urging Trump to impose sanctions on Russia and boost Ukraine’s defences.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.

Putin was speaking in Beijing after attending a massive military parade hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The event – also attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and leaders of some 20 other countries – was seen as a challenge to the US-dominated global world order.

It did not go unnoticed by Trump who wrote on his social media platform: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un as you conspire against the United States of America.”

Asked by a Russian state TV journalists whether the war in Ukraine could end soon, the Russian leader said “there is a certain light at the end of the tunnel”.

But he went on to stress that Russia would not relinquish the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine his troops have seized.

The Russian leader repeated his demands for Ukraine not to seek to become a Nato member and to stop what he called discrimination against ethnic Russians – one of the allegations mentioned as a pretext for the invasion.

Putin hinted that security guarantees that Ukraine’s Western allies have promised to provide Kyiv after a future peace deal would not relate to the Donbas areas whose inhabitants had opted to join Russia – a reference to widely-criticised votes held in the aftermath of the annexation.

On Thursday, the French president will host a meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing – a grouping of allies of Ukraine.

A source at the Élysée, Macron’s office, has said the group want to secure American backing for a plan to press Russia to agree a ceasefire, with allies extending security guarantees to Ukraine immediately, rather than waiting for a peace deal.

President Trump pressed Putin for a ceasefire during their summit in Alaska last month, but then emerged from the talks saying the search for a peace deal would be a better way of ending the conflict.

Putin has rejected calls for a truce and his troops have intensified attacks on Ukrainian cities. More than Russian 500 drones and 24 cruise missiles were launched on Wednesday night alone.

A firm run by a man dubbed “Britain’s kindest plumber” breached multiple fundraising rules, a year-long investigation by a regulator has found.

Depher Community Plumbing and Heating CIC, founded by James Anderson, was investigated by the Fundraising Regulator following multiple complaints.

The firm posted on social media about fitting free boilers for elderly and vulnerable people in Burnley, making Mr Anderson a viral sensation at the height of the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

The posts brought in at least £2m in donations, but a BBC News investigation last year revealed some of the stories shared online had in fact been faked.

The Fundraising Regulator has now confirmed it investigated 13 possible breaches of its code.

Gerald Oppenheim, chief executive of the regulator, told the BBC: “Our investigation into Depher CIC found the organisation had committed eight breaches of the code of fundraising practice; particularly those provisions concerning misleading information, evidencing the claims made by the organisation, and ensuring that restricted funds were used for the claimed purpose.”

The breaches included how images of vulnerable people were used to encourage donations without context, which the regulator deemed to be “misleading”.

Some of the firm’s posts also referenced how subjects had felt suicidal. The regulator said the mention of death or suicide alongside fundraising was “controversial” and not enough care had been taken over the treatment of case studies.

It found the number of fundraising appeal pages issued by Depher were “confusing for donors”, and that the firm did not have a system in place to learn from complaints.

Depher was a CIC – or Community Interest Company – which is a special type of UK limited company that exists to benefit the community rather than for private profit.

“While we took account of the fact that Depher was a small CIC that experienced rapid growth after media exposure, it is nonetheless clear that it made serious errors in its fundraising activities,” Mr Oppenheim added.

In May last year, a special report from BBC News examined hundreds of Depher CIC posts and interviewed families behind the faces on social media.

The investigation revealed a pattern of lies and allegations of exploitation, including:

• Multiple examples of Depher recycling the same photos in misleading and false posts, including several using the same image of a dead woman
• Depher posted a video and images of a vulnerable man in his 90s in fundraising posts more than 20 times, publicising information about his sexuality, despite the man denying he would have agreed to be filmed
• Depher funds were used to purchase a house and Mr Anderson also admitted to buying a car with company cash
• Former employees raised safety concerns after one staff member was pictured smoking a cigarette next to a leaking boiler

The BBC has contacted Mr Anderson for comment.

Last year, Mr Anderson denied some of the BBC’s allegations but admitted: “I’ve made mistakes.” He also claimed to have been the victim of online harassment and threats.

The daughter of an elderly woman, who featured in multiple false posts on a Depher social media account detailing how Mr Anderson prevented her from taking her on life, told the BBC she welcomed the regulator’s findings.

The BBC found the image of the woman had been used seven times in total by Depher between February 2021 and August 2023, with different ages and locations. We identified her as a woman named Joyce, who had died in February 2020, over a year before Depher began using her image.

Her daughter Andrea has now called on the police and other bodies to fully investigate the firm. “My mother loved her life and it is utterly despicable that someone could use death and suicide in such a way. It breaks my heart.”

She added: “I wish the police and other bodies would have taken it more seriously because James Anderson needs to be brought to account.”

At the time of the original BBC report, Mr Anderson admitted the posts showing the face of Joyce, Andrea’s mother, were misleading and apologised.

The plumber’s rise to fame saw him receive letters of thanks from the late Queen and the King, and a Pride of Manchester award. He has been a guest on Good Morning Britain, BBC Breakfast, The One Show, Sky News and the Russell Howard Show, and was described as “Britain’s kindest plumber” or a “hero plumber”.

Celebrities such as the singer Lily Allen, Emmerdale actress Samantha Giles and actor Hugh Grant – who gave £75,000 – were among the donors to his company.

After the BBC investigation Mr Anderson had his British Citizen Award rescinded, which he received in 2023.

Thousands of members of the public also donated money to him, many using appeals on GoFundMe, JustGiving and Crowdfunder.

A GoFundMe spokesperson said: “We welcome the Fundraising Regulator’s thorough investigation. Last year, we honoured refund requests under the GoFundMe Giving Guarantee. We always cooperate fully with regulatory inquiries and will take the strongest possible action against any misuse.”

The Office of the CIC Regulator told the BBC it noted the findings in the Fundraising Regulator’s report.

“Any complaints regarding CICs are taken seriously and if a breach in CIC legislation is identified, then appropriate regulatory action will be considered.”

Depher Community Plumbing and Heating CIC no longer trades under that name and is under new leadership as Community Elderly and Disabled Support CIC.

The BBC understands the Fundraising Regulator has made recommendations to the new business. The BBC has contacted the leadership team regarding their plans for the future.