David Lammy keeps £25m grace-and-favour home despite reshuffle

David Lammy has held on to the foreign secretary’s £25m grace-and-favour home after Sir Keir Starmer’s reshuffle.

The Deputy Prime Minister will remain living at the Westminster property, despite being moved to the Ministry of Justice earlier this month, The Telegraph understands.

One Carlton Gardens, a regency-era property that backs onto St James’s Park, is considered the grandest of the official ministerial residences.

It has usually been occupied by the foreign secretary since 1945, although the previous Tory government lent it to Lord Gove as a London pad after his split from his wife.

The six-storey property has three bedrooms, two dining rooms and a ballroom, and is divided between official rooms for government business and a self-contained flat for a minister.

The Telegraph understands that Yvette Cooper, who replaced Mr Lammy as Foreign Secretary, will still have use of the property and its grand rooms for diplomatic receptions, although Mr Lammy will live in the flat.

Mr Lammy was demoted from his position after Angela Rayner was forced to resign, prompting a wider ministerial reshuffle by Sir Keir.

He has gained Ms Rayner’s title of Deputy Prime Minister, but no longer occupies a “Great Office of State” – shorthand for the four most senior ministerial jobs.

Ms Cooper will have sole use of Chevening, the Foreign Secretary’s country residence on the outskirts of Sevenoaks.

Sources said she declined to move into Carlton Gardens, which is a five-minute walk from her office in the Foreign Office.

Ms Cooper and her husband, Ed Balls, a former Cabinet minister, share family homes in North London and Yorkshire.

Several foreign secretaries, including Lord Hammond, have declined to live inside the house and used it only for ministerial business.

Liz Truss and Lord Cameron both said they would prefer to live at their usual addresses, allowing Lord Gove to stay in the property while serving as housing secretary after his breakup with Sarah Vine.

It is understood that Ms Rayner’s former grace-and-favour flat in Admiralty House, off Horse Guards Parade, is vacant.

Her use of the property became controversial after it emerged that she had designated it as a second home, and that taxpayers were footing the bill for her council tax.

After Labour won last year’s election and she was given use of the flat, she stopped renting her own home in London.

However, Ms Rayner then bought another home in Brighton for £800,000 and avoided paying £40,000 in stamp duty.

A Telegraph investigation into the purchase forced her resignation from the Cabinet, triggering a full reshuffle by Sir Keir and an election for a new deputy leader of the Labour Party.

One Carlton Gardens was first made an official residence of the foreign secretary in 1945, when Ernest Bevin complained about living in a “shabby flat” in Downing Street alongside the prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer.

The allocation of ministerial residences is formally a decision for Sir Keir, who has the power of patronage to offer them to his allies in Cabinet.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]