The shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has been elected deputy leader of the Labour Party, it has been announced.
The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne will serve under new leader Sir Keir Starmer, whose election as leader was also announced today.
She has also been appointed by Starmer as chair of the Labour Party, and is understood to have given up her shadow education role.
First elected to Parliament in 2015, Rayner was appointed as shadow education secretary in July 2016 following the resignations of Lucy Powell and her successor Pat Glass, who served for just two days.
Starmer has not revealed much about his position on education issues during the campaign.
In a Q&A with Schools Week last month, he said he wanted schools to be “under local democratic control”, backed closing tax loopholes enjoyed by private schools and said he would “strongly oppose any attempts to extend selection in the school system”.
Your thoughts