Labour leader Ed Miliband visits Dewsbury in final campaign push

In an interview with the Reporter, Mr Miliband said his party was the only one offering a fair deal for working people and there was no candidate better equipped to fight for the NHS than Labour’s Dewsbury candidate Paula Sherriff.

“For the people of Dewsbury it is about the kind of MP they want,” he said.

“Do they want a full time MP, who will stand up for working people, vote to raise the minimum wage and oppose the bedroom tax?

“We have a better plan, a plan that will put working people first.”

He said Labour would act on concerns surrounding Dewsbury and District Hospital if it won the election.

“We will review the proposal to downgrade the accident and emergency department,” he said. “Paula has run a better campaign on the NHS and I can’t think of anyone better.”

He said he would also offer a different approach to cuts passed down to local authorities from central government.

“We are promising fairness in finding the formula. We don’t see local government as a soft touch,” he said.

“We will protect the services that really matter like education and SureStart.”

He said he would stand against Islamophobia and anti-Semitism and said our diverse society “should not be taken for granted”.

The Labour leader fought to convince a packed Dewsbury Town Hall that Labour would stand up for their interests.

Responding to a question from a couple affected by the bedroom tax, he said: “We will abolish it.

“We will do it as soon as we can get legislation in place.”

He assured Dewsbury’s college and sixth form students that a Labour government would cut the cap on university tuition fees to £6,000 from the current level of £9,000.

He said he would be tough on extremist group Islamic State (ISIS), but that any government should learn from mistakes made during the Iraq War in 2003.

“We must approach this a different way to how we have in the past. We need political solutions as we as military solutions.”

He said Labour would increase the minimum wage to £8 an hour and pay for the scheme with a tax on properties worth more than £2m.