Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has admitted local elections in the North East this summer are ‘really important’ for her party after disastrous defeats four years ago.

Reeves was speaking to The Northern Echo during a visit to a PPE manufacturing facility in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland.

The Labour MP admitted the ballots in the likes of Darlington and Teesside are will be a key sign of whether the party is winning back voters it lost in 2019.

Read more: Shadow Chancellor says North East has 'so much to offer' as she visits region

She said: “These local elections, I’m not going to undersell them, are really important for Labour to show that we are winning back support in places where we lost it at the last General Election.

“Labour is under new leadership with Keir Starmer as leader and myself as Shadow Chancellor. We understand why people left us at the last election and we’re determined to win back that trust and support.

“We’re already seeing that with the Wakefield by-election which is a key Red Wall seat for Labour where we returned an MP with a thumping majority but we are working really hard to restore that trust.

“We have already started to select some fantastic parliamentary candidates including in Darlington, Hartlepool, Bishop Auckland and in Sedgefield and it’s great to be able to campaign alongside them.

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“But these local elections are an opportunity for people to send a message to the Tories that they are out of ideas and out of road. I think people want these local elections but what people really want is a general election and a change of government.”

Votes in local elections across Teesside, Darlington, and Tyne and Wear are due to take place on May 4.

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Labour suffered humiliating losses across the North East and so-called Red Wall in elections in 2019 while Jeremy Corbyn was still leader.

But recent polling has suggested the party is on track to win back swathes of former Labour seats at the next General Election.

Boffins from pollsters Electoral Calculus have predicted the Conservatives would be wiped out in the North East in a national poll, with Rishi Sunak being the only Tory MP to keep his seat in Richmond.