Mike Hadley is a businessman whose Malvern-based firm specialises in computer software for pharmacists. He is married to Dr Jocelyn Briggs, a hospital consultant, and they have three children.

Even without the nightmare of foot-and-mouth disease, our rural heartlands have been in serious economic trouble and we want to address that by abolishing MAFF and creating a more broadly based Department of Rural Affairs with an effective voice at Cabinet level.

We want to see the revival of local markets and market towns and better rural transport, all of which will also help regenerate the hard-hit tourist industry.

In the short term, Liberal Democrats propose a fund of £100m, to help not just those farmers who have had animals slaughtered, but all the others who are losing business.

We say the Government's rate-relief scheme - restricted to businesses with a rateable value of less than £12,000 - is too miserly. We want those with rateable value up to £50,000 to be eligible. We also want the banks to make money available for interest-free loans.

Through our various individual campaigns - for example, in support of post offices and petrol stations - local Liberal Democrats have already shown support for Worcestershire's rural community and I will continue to do so if I am elected.

From the beginning, I have opposed the private-public partnership for DERA and I intend, therefore, to be rigorous in my scrutiny of how the new situation affects those staff now being transferred. I expect nothing less than that they will continue to enjoy the same terms and conditions of employment as before.

As the constituency MP, I will be able to test the Government's accountability for the development of DERA through the House of Commons and the Defence Select Committee.

I will strongly resist any further moves to fully privatise DERA, try to ensure continuity of the MoD's research programme and to support the local management in their moves to diversify and find new business.

It is the unfairness of Government funding that led Worcestershire's head teachers to descend on Westminster in protest. I support them and will lobby the Department for Education and Employment for a complete and immediate revision of the Standard Spending Allocation formula.

We know that there has been too little investment, too much bureaucracy, too many rules at the centre and too little time for teachers to teach. I want to create the situation where every Worcestershire pupil has the opportunity to fulfil their potential at school.

I would be determined to retain the expertise of our experienced and talented LEA officers to manage critical issues - like school transport and special needs pupils - that head teachers find very difficult to deal with on an individual school basis.

I am appalled that the new Labour Government simply picked up the pieces of the last Tory Government to use private investment to build the new hospital.

As a result, the size of the hospital was determined not by patient needs, but by the limited availability of funds. The premature and unnecessary downgrading of Kidderminster General Hospital has of course, further exacerbated the situation.

That makes it difficult to assure constituents that they will get the treatment they deserve, but as a former pharmacist working within the health service and being married to an NHS hospital consultant, I can guarantee an especial vigilance on their behalf.

I know, of course, that the doctors, nurses and general staff at the hospital will work with the dedication and resilience they have always shown and I will make it my business to keep the pressure on the Government to extract fund for the inevitable expansion that will be necessary even before the new hospital opens.

As an indication of the importance we place on health matters, Sir Paddy Ashdown was lending his weight to our local campaign today, during his visit to Malvern Community Hospital.

We have always insisted that the solution lies in the completion of the Wyre Piddle bypass and we have never allowed the scheme to slip off the county council's list of desirable projects. We, therefore, welcome the fact that, at last, the Government has approved the funding and we will now press for an early start on the construction work.

I also strongly support and will continue to press for the essential upgrading of the Cotswold Line with new signalling and dual tracks.

The Liberal Democrat group on the county council will also ensure the county's Local Transport Plan includes improved local bus services.