Angela Rayner has hired a foreign affairs adviser to boost her profile on the world stage, according to reports.

The Deputy Prime Minister has recruited the official in her Housing, Communities and Local Government department to focus on international issues.

They have joined a civil servant after previously working as an aide to several shadow cabinet ministers when Labour was in opposition.

Sources said Ms Rayner may occasionally need to deputise for Sir Keir Starmer on foreign and diplomatic matters.

But the move is being viewed by some allies of the Deputy PM as a bid to assert her authority amid persistant rumours that she has been sidelined by Sir Keir Starmer

One MP told The Times: “You’d have expected Angie to have her own department as Deputy Prime Minister. But what we wanted didn’t happen.

“So she’s hired a foreign policy adviser to cement her position at the heart of government and prove she can be a stateswoman.

“There are definitely some people in government who are trying to keep her in her box. But people are looking beyond Keir and the next election, and Angie is well placed to show she can be more than just a secretary of state.”

Ms Rayner’s team insisted the MP’s comments did not reflect her views.

It comes after the Ashton-under-Lyne MP was at the centre of a row over the recruitment of a taxpayer-funded photographer.

It was reported that Ms Rayner had hired a “vanity photographer”, having previously criticised Boris Johnson for doing the same.

But the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the photographer had been hired to chronicle the work of the department, not just Ms Rayner.