Embattled Angela Rayner breaks silence to tell BirminghamLive - 'we will invest in Brummies'

Labour deputy leader - facing a police probe into tax and electoral law claims - spoke only to us in visit to Perry Barr bus depot

Labour’s Angela Rayner showed no sign of being under personal pressure as she toured a Birmingham bus depot this week, joshing with staff, driving a virtual bus and sharing anecdotes of a tomboy childhood spent fixing cars.

While political opponents clamoured over the ins and outs of her living circumstances over a decade ago, resulting in a police investigation, the party’s deputy leader was focussed on setting out a future for the West Midlands under a Labour government.

In an exclusive chat with BirminghamLive, she set out why a Labour government would lift residents out of poverty and reignite hope and opportunity. We were given unique access as Ms Rayner joined mayoral candidate Richard Parker on a tour of National Express’s Perry Barr depot.

She was in town unexpectedly to support shadow transport secretary Lou Haigh and mayoral candidate Richard Parker as they unveiled Labour’s plans for better buses. Mr Parker has pledged to bring bus services under public control through a franchising model.

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Later, over a brew, Ms Rayner talked of why her desperation to get Labour into power was personal. News of another young life lost locally to knife crime and the seemingly-endless string of families torn apart by youth violence was our first topic of conversation. “The idea our children are not safe any more, let alone being given opportunities to get on in life, is the biggest scandal for me,” she said.

“We've seen with the Conservative austerity agenda in the last 14 years that what were considered add-on services, like youth provision, for example, have been torn down, only to belatedly realise the crucial role those services played in giving young people opportunity and preventing them from getting into situations where they're at risk. The deep levels of poverty and steep levels of inequality have grown over the last 14 years…it is a scandal."

In Birmingham, 48 per cent of children are living in poverty - around a third in what is called absolute poverty, where the household income is so low it makes providing basics a challenge.

Ms Rayner has spoken often of the challenging, chaotic childhood she lived through on a poverty-stricken council estate, and of the solace and opportunity she found in her local youth centre and the work of Sure Start. “That’s why if you look at our missions around tackling violence against women and girls, tackling knife crime and rebuilding our public services and the infrastructure and the jobs we want to create, it's about ending this sticking plaster politics of a gimmick here and there, and really starting to do the real work, building the foundations that we need so that people can not only be saved but given real opportunity, because that's what's been snatched away from people.”

People being blamed for being poor was especially galling, she said. “It's like, oh, you know, your children are in this situation because you're not a good mom. You're not able to provide for your family because you're not working hard enough. That's so wrong because actually, if you look at what the Government have done, persistently, is take away those opportunities, those rungs of the ladder, that enable people to do that. And as someone who grew up in a working class background, I understand that people don't want handouts. They want to be able to provide for their family, and be given the opportunities that I was lucky enough to have growing up."

Given the current state of the nation, however, can Labour promise to make inroads in the short term that will improve life for today’s children in Birmingham, rather than in ten years’ time?

Ms Rayner highlighted the impact locally of austerity cuts that saw £1 billion lost to the local authority over 14 years, speaking of the Tories ‘ripping the heart and lungs out of communities’. Those impacts are still being seen across the city and region, she said.

READ MORE: Rick Payne resigns from Birmingham City Council after racist social media posts exposed

On immediate impacts, she said Labour would focus on tackling the dire housing crisis that has trapped families across Birmingham and the Black Country in low-quality homes, in B&Bs and without enough social and affordable housing. She referred to a £2 billion pot of money - representing around a third of the government’s entire annual housing budget - she said was ‘given back’ to the Treasury, unspent, by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities last year despite the level of need.

“We will use that money to build homes. We’d have also set a windfall tax on energy companies - so many businesses have gone bust in Birmingham because of the overhead costs, and so many families struggled to cope with those huge energy bills…those are things that would help.”

Labour’s longer-term initiatives include its green prosperity plan and the jobs and the investment those would bring, and its workforce plan for the NHS to create thousands more doctors, nurses and dentists.

Ms Rayner said: “We know there are immediate things that practically we have to do to stop the crisis (the country is in). It is a crisis…I used to call it ‘managed decline’ but it's not even managed, it just feels like decline. And it didn't have to be this way.

“The next Government would inherit a very difficult, challenging financial circumstance, but the opportunities are there. We're still one of the richest countries in the world. And I think our biggest asset is our people and our ability to invest in them will see this go from strength to strength. Birmingham was the powerhouse of the industrial revolution, the city of 1000 trades...what we need is a government that will match the city's ambition and are willing and courageous enough to invest in the people. And that's what we're going to do.”

She also set out a vision to ensure Labour's regional mayors had a seat at the cabinet table of a future Labour government, where they could be at the heart of decision-making and make the case formally for their area. It made sense given their intimate knowledge of their region's unique needs, she said, with hope that Mr Parker would be among them.

In a later statement provided by her office on the personal crisis enveloping her, Ms Rayner was adamant she had done nothing wrong. She has pledged to step down as deputy leader of the Labour party if a police investigation by Greater Manchester Police, triggered by a Conservative party complaint, found she had committed a crime, amid allegations of breaching electoral law and avoiding capital gains tax.

The row surrounds her living circumstances in a council house when she was first married, prior to becoming an MP, and whether she should have paid up to £1,500 on the profits of the sale of her council house in 2015. She faces calls to publish the legal and tax advice she received over the issue.

She said: “I’ve repeatedly said I would welcome the chance to sit down with the appropriate authorities, including the police and HMRC, to set out the facts and draw a line under this matter. I am completely confident I’ve followed the rules at all times. I have always said integrity and accountability are important in politics. That’s why it’s important that this is urgently looked at, independently and without political interference.

"We have seen the Tory party use this playbook before – reporting political opponents to the police during election campaigns to distract from their record. I will say as I did before – if I committed a criminal offence, I would of course do the right thing and step down. The British public deserves politicians who know the rules apply to them.

“The questions raised relate to a time before I was an MP and I have set out my family’s circumstances and taken expert tax and legal advice. I look forward to setting out the facts with the relevant authorities at the earliest opportunity.”