'Hard work' follows pit closures in Warwickshire

Labour has "worked hard" to bring new jobs to an area of Warwickshire since the pits closed, a parliamentary hopeful has claimed.

Mike O'Brien, Warwickshire North Labour candidate, said it has used those sites as a focus to bring in business and it has been "enormously successful".

Conservative candidate Dan Byles said small and medium businesses must be supported to get through the recession.

Liberal Democrat Stephen Martin said education was the key to the future.

He said: "It's really very deprived in terms of decline of the mining industry and to some extent the decline in the manufacturing industry.

"[There's] low performance in the educational system - under 40% of the school population are getting GCSEs."

Mr O'Brien said: "We've managed to keep unemployment lower than it was in the previous Tory recessions - it's half of that."

Mr Byles said: "This is predominantly a rural economy. We have a lot of very small businesses, small and medium businesses.

"We've pledged we're going to cut small companies' business tax rates from 22p to 20p."

The candidates for Warwickshire North are: Conservative: Dan Byles; UK Independence Party: Steven Fowler; British National Party: Jason Holmes; English Democrats: David Lane; Liberal Democrats: Stephen Martin; Labour: Mike O'Brien.