LABOUR councillor Rachel Eden has been selected to represent her party in the race for Reading West seat in Parliament.

Rachel Eden and other hopeful candidates attended a hustings selection event at the weekend at The Pavilion on Oxford Road.

The seat, currently held by Conservative MP and Employment Minister Alok Sharma, will be contested for at the next General Election in 2022.

Matt Rodda, MP for Reading East, praised his Labour colleague following her victory.

He said: “I am pleased that a candidate has been selected to represent Labour in the campaign to win Reading West.

"Rachel is a strong candidate, she has a proven trackrecord of being a hard-working Reading councillor, she is committed to standing up for local people and I look forward to working with her."

Mr Sharma achieved a narrow victory in the 2017 election, with Labour's Olivia Bailey claiming more than 43 per cent of the votes.

Meri O'Connell (Liberal Democrat) and Jamie Whitham (Green Party) were responsible for the rest of the votes.