Jacqui Smith, the Labour candidate, is married with two children and is a former who worked in Worcester.

Crime has fallen since 1997, but I know that vandalism and yobbish behavior can ruin the peace of mind of local people.

Tackling this sort of behavior starts young with our policies to tackle truancy from school and bullying. We also need to ensure that Labour's reforms of the youth justice system are fully implemented. It makes sense to bring together schools, police and social services alongside the courts to nip youth crime in the bud before it becomes a life of crime and a blight on local communities. I am also keen that we find ways to target the relatively small number of people who can be responsible which is why I welcomed the introduction of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.

We have new CCTV cameras in Redditch, but need more investment both in this and in extra police officers so that we can build on this year when we have nine extra officers on the beat in Redditch and new neighborhood police stations opening.

This year there has been an increase of 8.1 per cent into the Worcestershire schools' budget. I taught for 11 years in Worcestershire before being elected and know that we have never seen increases of that magnitude. In fact, when the County Council was Conservative controlled they prided themselves on their 'cut-price' education service. It is this miserly legacy that has led to our current low position in the funding league table.

It is now up to a Labour Government to put right the mess in education funding which is why we published proposals for a fairer and more transparent system of education funding last year and will legislate if we are re-elected. Much of the new money that has come into the county - for school buildings, for the literacy and numeracy strategies, for summer schools, for support staff - has come outside the unfair funding system so we have had a fairer share of the new money made available by the Labour Government.

In the last few weeks, I have worked with several local farmers affected by the foot-and-mouth outbreak to ensure that their animals are slaughtered as quickly as possible and that they get the compensation they are entitled to.

The future of our agricultural industry is not just an issue for the countryside. We all depend on farmers for our food and vital exports and we rightly provide large amounts of public subsidy to the industry.

As foot-and-mouth comes under control, we need to return to the vital work necessary to ensure that our farmers get the support they need - Labour has supported British Agriculture with £1.2bn over and above the £5bn from the Common Agricultural Policy. However, we also need to reform the CAP, address the burdens of over-regulation, promote farm diversification, reward farmers for their environmental work and ensure that there is co-operation throughout the food chain from farm to supermarket to consumer