Police have reopened an investigation over claims Angela Rayner may have broken electoral law by giving false information about where she was living before she became an MP.

Labour says it is confident Rayner has complied with the rules, and she “welcomes the chance to set out the facts with the police”.

James Daly, a deputy chair of the Conservative party, made Greater Manchester police aware of neighbours contradicting the deputy Labour leader’s claims that her property, separate from her husband’s, was her main residency.

Daly, the MP for Bury North, told police Rayner may have made a false declaration on the electoral register about where she was living. She has also faced questions about whether she paid the right amount of capital gains tax on the 2015 sale of her ex-council house.

Rayner bought her council house on Vicarage Road, Stockport, in January 2007 for £79,000. She was registered on the electoral roll there from 2007 until 2015, was not registered to vote elsewhere and did not rent out the property and has insisted that this house was her “principal property”.

Rayner’s then partner, Mark Rayner, already owned a home at Lowndes Lane, about a mile away from her property and they decided to keep their separate properties.

According to Ashcroft’s unofficial biography, Rayner re-registered the births of the two sons she had with Mark to her husband’s house in 2010. It is unclear which address was on their birth certificates previously.

In March 2015, Rayner sold her home for £127,500, making a profit of £48,500. At this point, she was registered at this address on the electoral roll, until her husband sold his home in 2016.

As a result of the reports, Rayner has faced questions about where she lived for the first five years of her marriage, as under electoral rules voters are expected to register at their permanent address and could face penalties for providing false information.

Greater Manchester police (GMP) previously said it would not investigate the allegations, but launched this investigation after reassessing information provided by Daly.

A GMP spokesperson said: “We’re investigating whether any offences have been committed. This follows a reassessment of the information provided to us by Mr Daly.”

Rayner has insisted she has “done absolutely nothing wrong” and said she took legal advice that no rules were broken. While she would present the advice to police or the HMRC, Rayner has refused to publicly release her “personal tax advice”.

A Labour spokesperson said: “Angela welcomes the chance to set out the facts with the police. We remain completely confident that Angela has complied with the rules at all times and it’s now appropriate to let the police do its work.”

Rayner was also backed by the former Labour leader Ed Miliband, who said she was an inspiration and “exactly the kind of person we need in politics”.

“We are absolutely 100% behind Angela. We are absolutely confident that she has complied with the rules. She welcomes the fact she can set out the facts,” he said. “My message to the country is we are incredibly proud of Angela Rayner, our deputy leader. She is an inspiring person, she is exactly the kind of person we need in politics.

“If a Labour government is elected, I look forward to Angela Rayner serving as deputy prime minister. Frankly, the Conservative party is a desperate party that has nothing to say to the country about the big issues that it faces.”

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has said it was “not appropriate” for him to see Rayner’s legal advice, and said people were more interested in “problems caused by this government”.

He said the Conservatives were “chasing a smear”, adding: “Angela Rayner has been asked no end of questions about this. She’s answered them all. She said she’s very happy to answer any further questions from the police or from any of the authorities.

“I don’t need to see the legal advice. My team has seen it. But I will say this, that on the day that the A&E figures, people are waiting more than 24 hours in A&E, we now know that they are 10 times as high as they were five years ago.”

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