Waqar Azmi, aged 31, lives in Worcestershire with his wife Haseena, an NHS clinical psychologist. The chief executive of Worcestershire Racial Equality Council, Mr Azmi was previously an ethnic studies lecturer in Lancashire and Southampton.

I am a Labour candidate who believes passionately on matters affecting our rural countryside. The farming and local tourism sectors have suffered terribly from foot-and-mouth. The Tories' record on supporting rural communities is appalling. Labour inherited a situation where many areas of rural Britain were suffering the consequence of long-term and wilful neglect. In 18 years the Tories failed rural communities. Essential bus services were run down, village schools and post offices closed, and promises on police numbers broken. Rural deprivation was not tackled, and they mismanaged the BSE crisis. The Tories' £20bn public services cuts guarantee would mean cuts in rural services and cuts in support for rural regeneration programmes.

Labour is advocating rate relief, small business loans and deferred tax payments to help rural businesses, and is spending £43m on support for market towns and £12m on tourist board advertising to boost the rural economy. As MP, I would work closely with the local authorities, farming and tourism sectors, local communities and the Rural Development Agency to help boost the rural economy.

I would work hard to protect the terms and conditions and pay, of all staff affected by the move. Labour has always been the party of workers' rights - for example, Tony Blair's Government brought in a national minimum wage and the 1999 Employment Rights Act to guarantee good working conditions. It also brought in the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment (TUPE) regulations which ensures the same terms and conditions for employees where public services are delivered in partnership with the private or voluntary sectors.

It is essential no one employed at DERA is worse off through re-employment or transfer. I would work closely with DERA staff representatives, the Ministry of Defence and the employers to make sure this did not happen. DERA has been a key employer in Worcestershire. I would do everything in my power to protect their employment, rights and welfare.

Education is our number one priority. Spending on education in Worcestershire has gone up by over 27 per cent per pupil in the past four years, thanks to Labour's huge investment in schools. Standards are rising, buildings are being repaired and improved. There are smaller class sizes for five-seven year-olds and a guaranteed pre-school place for all four-year-olds whose parents want it.

The reason Worcestershire consistently ranks very low in education league tables for funding is because this was the arrangement that the Tory Government had put in place. Not many people know this. I have worked hard with Jacqui Smith, Mike Foster and together with the pressure from other MPs, headteachers, governors and local people we got an extra £1.35m this year for education. I agree that this "out of date" Tory arrangement needs to be reviewed and reformed. Labour has published a Green Paper on a new funding formula that will replace "standard spending assessments". I shall be working with local groups and MPs to get a fairer deal for Worcestershire. Voters must decide whether a Labour candidate can bring changes more quickly or a candidate of an opposition party sitting on the margins.

It is thanks to Labour's multi-million pound hospital building programme that Worcestershire is getting a new hospital. We will have one of the most modern, well-equipped hospitals in the UK.

Labour is investing billions of pounds in the NHS after so many years in which the Tories ran down our hospitals and tried to make people get private health care. Today, waiting lists are down by 100,000 and waiting times falling. There are 17,000 more nurses, over 6,500 more doctors, and over 9,000 more therapists, scientists, and technicians working for patients. Labour has pledged to recruit 20,000 more nurses, along with more doctors, consultants and midwives.

There will be huge investment in heart and cancer care to speed up treatment for patients. Labour will also bring back matrons to make sure wards are caring, clean and efficient. The Tories will slash health spending and push more and more people into private hospitals, creating a two-tier service with the NHS the poor relation.

One of the main reasons for traffic congestion in Pershore is parking restrictions on the A44 through the town centre are not strictly enforced. Every time I'm in Pershore there are cars, vans and lorries parked on the yellow lines outside the shops, which means traffic can't get through and pedestrians are put at risk. Local people are concerned. I would press police and councils for more traffic wardens to stop this illegal parking.

Labour is investing heavily in public transport, particularly in rural bus services, to help get more people out of their cars, cut traffic congestion and improve road safety. The Easylink bus service in villages around Pershore is a good example. As MP, I would work with local authorities to produce an integrated transport plan with targets to reduce road traffic, improve safety, public transport and air quality. This would help make Pershore roads safer.