Matt Rodda is the Labour MP for Reading East, having first been elected to Parliament in 2017, he was re-elected in 2019 with a majority of 5,924.
Reading East is the more Labour leaning of the two Reading seats. An ethnically diverse constituency, the seat also has a high student population from Reading University. The Thames Valley Business Park containing a number of well known technology companies is found within this seat. Reading East was held by the Conservatives between 2005 and 2017, but the seat has bucked the national trend in recent years, and switched to Labour.
Rodda was appointed as the Shadow Minister for Pensions in January 2021. He previously served as Shadow Minister for Buses and Shadow Minister for Local Transport.
Born in 1966, Matt Rodda grew up in Oxfordshire, and was educated at the University of Sussex. He worked as a journalist for the Independent newspaper and as a civil servant in the Department of education, before being elected to Parliament.
He supported Emily Thornberry in the 2020 Labour leadership election.
Rodda was elected to Reading Council between 2011 and 2018. He is married with two children.
Rodda is a survivor of the 1999 Ladbroke Grove rail crash, which claimed 31 lives. Talking to the Henley Standard, Rodda said he would not have survived the crash if he had been sitting in his normal first class seat towards the front of his train. However he had been forced to stand in the buffet car due to overcrowding, and therefore avoided the worst impact of the crash.
Email – matt.rodda.mp@parliament.uk
Website – www.mattrodda.net
Twitter – @MattRodda
facebook.com/matt4readingeast
