Helen Harrison, who is a Conservative councillor in Wellingborough’s North Northamptonshire area, was selected by members of the party on Sunday afternoon, according to party chair Richard Holden.
He wrote: “Congratulations to Cllr Helen Harrison on being selected for Wellingborough at a packed meeting of Conservative members this afternoon.”
It is understood that Ms Harrison won around 70 per cent of the vote in the selection meeting.
An election is being held in Wellingborough after Mr Bone was found by parliament to have subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct. He has denied the allegations.
It is not known when the by-election will be, as Parliament has been in recess until today.
Disgraced MP Mr Bone was suspended from the Commons for six weeks in October after an inquiry found he had subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct.
Parliament’s Independent Expert Panel ruled he had engaged in “a wilful pattern of bullying” which included “an unwanted incident of sexual misconduct, when the complainant was trapped in a room with the respondent in a hotel in Madrid”.
He was sitting as an independent MP after losing the Tory whip in the wake of the findings.
But he has now been stripped of his Commons seat after losing a crunch recall petition triggered automatically by the length of his suspension from Parliament.
Some 13.2 per cent of constituents – 10,505 people – voted to oust him during the six-week vote, according to North Northamptonshire Council.
This exceeds the 10 per cent threshold needed for the recall to succeed.
Labour will be hoping to swing the constituency after a series of stunning by-election victories in 2023, including in Mid-Bedfordshire where the party overturned a majority of 24,664.
