Labour MP ‘Grangela’ Rayner becomes grandmother at 37

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has become a grandmother at the age of 37.

The Ashton-under-Lyne MP announced the birth of her first grandchild in an early-morning tweet in which she gave herself the new nickname Grangela.

Ms Rayner had her first son, Ryan, at the age of 16 and said being a teenage mother “saved me”.

Writing on Twitter around an hour after her grandchild’s birth, the mother-of-three said: “At just before 6am today after an eventful evening, I became a grandma. Thank you to all the wonderful staff at NHS Tameside. #Grangela.”

Soon congratulations were flooding in from constituents and fellow Labour MPs.

Earlier this year, the Labour MP recalled her experience of being a teenage mother making ends meet as a care worker on a Stockport council estate.

Speaking at a Times Red Box fringe event at Labour’s party conference in Brighton, she said: “Even though getting pregnant at 16 and having no qualifications is not the best start for anybody, you’ve got to understand that where my life was.

“It actually saved me from where I could have been because I had a little person to look after – I wanted to prove that I could be a good mum and somebody was finally going to love me as much as I deserved to be loved, and that’s what pregnancy was for me.”

In her maiden speech to Parliament following her election in 2015, Ms Rayner said; “Perhaps … I am the only member of the House, who, at the tender age of 16 with my first baby was told in no uncertain terms, that I would  `never amount to anything’.

“If they could see me now… ”

A spokesman for Ms Rayner said her son Ryan had become a father to baby Lilith Mae, who was born at Tameside Hospital on Wednesday weighing 5lb 12oz.

He said: “She was born quickly but is doing very well.”

He said mother and baby were receiving “excellent care” in hospital.