Ashton-under-Lyne MP, Angela Rayner, has announced that she is running to be deputy leader of the Labour Party.

The Shadow Education Secretary was speaking at an event in Stockport, where she grew up and called for the Labour leadership to be a team effort.

Setting out the high stakes for the party, she said Labour faced "the fight of our lives" over the next five years after the heavy defeat in the general election saw parts of its former heartlands turn to the Conservatives.

She said that she would back Salford and Eccles MP, Rebecca Long-Bailey, for the Labour leadership if she decides to run.

A new leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party will be announced on Saturday, April 4, the party's National Executive Committee has agreed

She said "I believe this deputy leadership election is our chance to debate what went wrong, and that a core role of the next deputy leader will be to put it right.

"It is why I want the leadership of our party to be a team effort. I will be quite straightforward: I will be voting for my friend Rebecca Long-Bailey if she stands for the leadership.

"But our collective leadership must go far wider than simply who is elected to these positions.

"It is why I want us to have an honest and friendly, conversation with each other.

"And at the end of it, a united party that starts winning elections for us all."

Ms Long-Bailey tweeted her support for Ms Rayner.

She added that previous Labour government initiatives such as 'Sure Start' and the 'minimum wage' gave her the help she needed to succeed in life.

She also thanked the Trade Unions for giving her a "political education, skills and a vocation".