Deputy PM Angela Rayner given John Prescott's old love nest to live in

Angela Rayner sparked outrage last week by setting out plans to carpet the green belt with housing estates – but she won't have to set up home among the new-builds herself.

The Deputy Prime Minister has been discreetly granted the use of a taxpayer-funded apartment in the heart of Whitehall that used to be home to Winston Churchill.

It is also where another Labour Deputy PM, John 'Two Jags' Prescott, conducted secret assignations with his lover Tracey Temple.

A source told The Mail on Sunday that the idea had been to move Ms Rayner into the property 'quietly over Christmas', But No 10 was forced to announce the plan this weekend after the MoS made inquiries.

Ms Rayner – known as 'Two Homes Rayner' after this newspaper revealed she shuttled between two Right to Buy council properties early in her marriage – will move into a grace-and-favour flat in Admiralty House.

The four-storey, Grade 1-listed building was constructed in the 1780s at the request of Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Howe when he was First Lord of the Admiralty. 

It was occupied by Mr Churchill when he held the same post from 1911 to 1915 and 1939 to 1940.

Ms Rayner's move, made at the discretion of the Prime Minister, comes after the Dorneywood country estate in Berkshire – where Mr Prescott famously played croquet when Tony Blair's deputy – was allocated to Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Last night an ally of Ms Rayner, 44, denied that Admiralty House was 'compensation' for not being granted Dorneywood or Chevening, the Kent mansion which has previously been shared between the Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.

The ally said: 'Dorneywood is traditionally used by the Chancellor and Angela did not have any interest in pursuing access to Chevening.'

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Lord Prescott, who died last month at 86, formed a relationship with his diary manager Ms Temple while living in Admiralty House.

She later said that the relationship changed when she first went to his flat in May 2002 with ministerial boxes.

'He leaned forward and cupped my face in his hands,' she told the MoS. 'I froze. He said: '"I probably shouldn't have done that." I said, "No, you shouldn't." '

Ms Temple added that in the weeks that followed the couple became 'closer and closer'.

Ms Rayner, who is also the Housing Secretary, announced last week that councils will be forced to surrender large parts of the green belt in order to hit her target of 1.5 million new homes by 2029. 

The plans would give priority for house-building to an area of the green belt larger than Surrey. She has also been accused of hypocrisy for cutting back on Right to Buy perks which benefited her. 

She bought her council house in Stockport in 2007 just after passing the eligibility criterion of three years' tenancy. Her department is now consulting on extending that period to ten years.

After receiving a discount of 25 per cent from the house's £79,000 asking price, she sold it eight years later for a profit of £48,500. During much of that time, neighbours say she was living with her husband in his Right to Buy house.

A source close to Ms Rayner – whose family home is in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency – said she would be giving up the London flat she rents. 

The source added: 'She'll miss that flat and she's been renting it for years for her work in Westminster because her home is in Greater Manchester. But it's become increasingly unsustainable not to have a government base in London now she's the Deputy Prime Minister. '