THE FORMER shadow secretary of state for Wales said she will have to wait before finding out if she will become the next secretary of state for the nation.
Labour’s Jo Stevens made the comment after winning the re-introduced seat of Cardiff East by 15,833 votes.
Her party has won the election, with the Conservatives taking heavy losses across the country and failing to win a single Welsh seat.
Ms Stevens said: “It is a wonderful feeling and a real privilege [to win].
“I have very much loved being an MP for Cardiff Central and the new communities that have joined the seat to create Cardiff East seat as well, I am looking forward to serving them as best as I can.”
Cardiff Central was one of the seats that was scrapped in a revision of the constituency boundaries across Wales.
Instead of having 40 seats, Wales now has 32. Ms Stevens had been the MP for Cardiff Central since 2015.
When asked if she will be the next secretary of state for Wales, Ms Stevens said: “Keir Starmer will make his cabinet appointments, I am sure that will happen at some point maybe today or into tomorrow and we will wait and see what he does.”
A total of 39,299 people voted in Cardiff East, which is 53.93% of the total electorate in the constituency.
The election results for Cardiff East were as follows:
- Rodney Berman (Liberal Democrat) 6,736
- Beatrice Brandon (Conservatives) 3,913
- Lee Canning (Reform UK) 4,980
- Sam Coates (Green) 3,916
- Cadewyn Skelley (Plaid Cymru) 3,550
- Jo Stevens (Labour) 15,833
- John Williams (TUSC) 195
Ms Stevens added: “The absolute thread throughout all of the campaign from people I spoke to, not just in Cardiff East, but across Wales was the cost of living and the economic instability that we have had which creates so many problems for people, whether it is to do with housing, whether it is to do with education, whether it is to do with health and their work.
“I am really looking forward to being part of a UK Labour Government that is going to address all of those issues, one of the things being our new deal for working people so that they can have secure, fair, safe work that pays decent wages and people can have a good standard of living.”
