Reading East was a constituency[n 1] represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament.

The Thames Valley Business Park is in another part of the seat, hosting multinational and cutting-edge technology companies in the software and advanced computer science areas.

Adjoining the redeveloped heart of town are a handful mid-rise blocks of ex-council flats and serried ranks of former relatively philanthropic biscuit, brick and seeds manufacturing/processing workers' neat terraces towards the south-centre and east of the town, including firmly Labour-held wards.

Intermediate wards such as Redlands and Park are more marginal including Green Party and Liberal Democrat representation.

The constituency was won in 1997 by the Labour Party's Jane Griffiths, thus a backbencher under the Blair Ministry.

Reading East was one of five constituencies, the others being Croydon Central, Enfield Southgate, Leeds North West and Peterborough, which elected Labour MPs in 2017 having not done so since 2001.