Lib Dems announce parliamentary candidate for Houghton and Sunderland South

Paul Edgeworth has been named as the Lib Dem candidate in the Houghton and Sunderland South constituency.

Mr Edgeworth, 31, was born and brought up in Sunderland and currently lives in Ashbrooke.

He is a former pupil of both Southmoor Comprehensive School and St Robert of Newminster in Washington. He has worked at several places across the city, including at the Saltgrass and Kings Arms pubs in Deptford, the Stadium of Light, the Fusion call centre at Castletown and at Royal Mail at Doxford International Business Park.

Mr Edgeworth currently works as campaigns manager for the consumer organisation CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale), working with volunteers, communities and organisations to look after local pubs and their customers.

Labour's Bridget Phillipson has been Houghton and Sunderland South MP since 2010.

Under the Fixed-term Parliament Act, the next general election isn’t due until June 2022; five years after the previous one. However, many commentators expect it to be announced much sooner.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will seek to trigger a general election if opposition MPs and rebel Conservatives succeed in the current parliament in blocking a no-deal Brexit on October 31.

The Houghton and Sunderland South constituency includes communities across Houghton, Hetton, Shiney Row and Penshaw, as well as Doxford, Tunstall, Silksworth, Farringdon, the Herringtons, Lakeside, Hastings Hill, Thorney Close and Grindon.

The constituency was created in 2010 when it was won by Labour’s Bridget Phillipson, then aged 26.

Dr Kevin Yuill will stand for the Brexit Party.

She has held the seat ever since with comfortable majorities in the 2015 and 2017 elections, with an average majority of 31%

In August the Brexit Party announced that Kevin Yuill, 56, a University of Sunderland lecturer in American history and originally from Winnipeg, Canada, would be its candidate.

The Conservative Party has yet to announce who its candidate will be.

In the city’s other constituencies, Washington and Sunderland West and Sunderland Central, the Brexit Party is the only party so far to announce the names of their candidates.

All three of Sunderland’s constituencies are currently served by Labour Members of Parliament.