As Angela Rayner opens up about the challenges of co-parenting a child with disabilities during an ongoing stamp duty row, the Mirror takes a look at the traumatic birth of her son Charlie, and his miraculous survival
In her recent statement, Deputy PM Angela Rayner made reference to the difficulties she’s faced as a mother of a child with lifelong disabilities, reflecting that “family life is rarely straightforward, particularly when dealing with disability, divorce, and the complexities of ensuring your children’s long-term security”.
In recent days, the 45-year-old Ashton-under-Lyne MP has come under scrutiny over her tax arrangements following the purchase of a £800,000 apartment in the seaside resort of Hove, in East Sussex.
Ms Rayner referred herself to the ethics committee following reports she saved £40,000 in stamp duty by removing her name from the deeds of a family property in Ashton-under-Lyne. She said she took expert financial advice, and subsequently acted upon that advice.
However, PM Keir Starmer stood by his deputy, who he hailed as a “great story of British success”, emphasising her extraordinary rise from impoverished teenage mother to one of the most powerful women in Britain.
Over the years, Ms Rayner faced significant challenges, both in a professional and personal capacity. And this includes the traumatic birth of her middle child, Charlie.
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Charlie, now 17, is the eldest of Ms Rayner’s two younger sons that she welcomed with her now ex-husband Mark Rayner, who she met during her early years getting involved in trade unionism. It’s understood that he’s now studying at college, but things could have taken a far more devastating turn.
In a 2018 interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, the then Shadow Education Secretary opened up about the moment a doctor told her that Charlie wouldn’t survive after he was born at just 23 weeks. She recalled: “He said, ‘There’s nothing we can do, he won’t survive’.”
The mum-of-three remembered how Charlie, who was born weighing less than 1lb, looked like a “baby sparrow”. She and then husband Mark were told on three separate occasions that their son wouldn’t make it. She shared: “One time in particular they said he wouldn’t survive, and it was not a good thing to carry on with it. I just curled up in ball and thought, ‘That’s it’.”
The tiny lad spent the first six months of his life in a neonatal unit, where he crashed three times and suffered a bleed to the brain. Miraculously, however, he was able to pull through. Registered blind and with additional learning difficulties, Charlie has faced significant hurdles in life, but has been able to attend school, and is said to enjoy a good sibling relationship with his younger brother Jimmy.
Ms Rayner and Mark, who married in 2010, have since divorced. It’s understood that teenagers Charlie and Jimmy live with their dad, Mark, on the outskirts of Manchester, while Ms Rayner now mainly resides in ministerial apartments at the Grade I listed Admiralty House, which faces Whitehall.
In her own statement addressing the recent stamp duty controversy, Ms Rayner, who first became a mum at just 16 years old, spoke of how she’d “always tried to be the best mum to [her] children, while managing the demanding realities of public service.” She also touched upon the difficulties she’d faced as a co-parent navigating divorce, while taking Charlie’s additional needs into consideration.
According to Ms Rayner: “In 2023 my ex-husband and I divorced. As parents who have been through divorce will understand, the top priority for both of us during that process was the wellbeing of our children and helping them navigate this change. To provide maximum stability during this transition, we agreed to a nesting arrangement where the children remain in the family home full-time while we alternate living there. We also wanted to ensure that our child, who has special educational needs, was provided for as part of the divorce settlement.
“A court-instructed trust was established in 2020 following a deeply personal and distressing incident involving my son as a premature baby. He was left with lifelong disabilities, and the trust was established to manage the award on his behalf – a standard practice in circumstances like ours.
“To ensure he continued to have stability in the family home, which had been adapted for his needs, we agreed that our interest in the family home would be transferred to this court-instructed trust of which he is the sole beneficiary.
“Some of the interest in our family home was transferred to the trust in 2023. In January 2025, I sold the remaining interest in the property to my son’s trust. This will give him the security of knowing the home is his, allowing him to continue to live in the home he feels safe in and grew up in. We transferred the property because it was in the best interests of our child. I acted as any parent would.”
The Stockport-born politician has previously opened up about how welcoming her first son Ryan to the world proved to be a saving grace, and made her determined to build a better life for them both, especially given that his father hadn’t stuck around.
Addressing a Labour fringe event back in 2017, Ms Rayner shared: “Because I had a little person that I had to look after and I wanted to prove to everybody I wasn’t the scumbag they thought I was going to be, and I could be a good mum, and that somebody was finally going to love me as much as I deserved to be loved. And that’s what pregnancy was for me, it saved me.”
For Ms Rayner, her own upbringing had been difficult, and she knew she wanted more for her own children. Her mother lived with a bipolar disorder and was also completely illiterate. According to Ms Rayner’s website: “For the most part, I was raised by my grandma who worked at three jobs to put food on the table and didn’t stop until the day she died – three days before her 65th birthday.”
The year of Ryan’s birth, 1997, proved to be a fortuitous one for the young Ms Rayner, with Tony Blair’s new Sure Start scheme giving her access to parenting classes which emphasised the importance of telling children ‘I love you’ and cuddling them. She previously told the Mirror: “I never had any of that. It wasn’t because my parents were evil, they didn’t have those skills.”
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