Labour MP Angela Rayner becomes a grandmother at 37

Shadow Education Secretary announces birth on Twitter with 'Grangela' hashtag

(PA)

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:

Earlier this year, she recalled her experience of being a teenage mother on a council estate, saying the birth of her son “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”.

PA