Bradford’s status as a key battleground in the General Election was cemented today when three big-hitters from the political world descended on the city.

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague, Communities and Local Government Minister Shahid Malik and Yorkshire Minister Rosie Winterton hit the trail in Bradford.

Mr Malik, Labour MP for Dewsbury, came to the city to see the work being done to empower children and to steer them away from extremism.

He visited St Philips Primary School, in Girlington, to be told about links the school has formed with Reevy Hill School, in Buttershaw. He moved onto Bradford City FC to see how the Mosaic mentoring network was giving young people positive role models via sport.

Meanwhile, Mr Hague, a former leader of the Tory party, arrived in Bradford to visit the Conservative Party’s Yorkshire Campaign headquarters. He said: “Bradford is our headquarters for the whole of Yorkshire and the Humber in terms of our campaign to get the seats we need to gain in the region.”

Mr Hague said the Tories had paid ‘exceptional attention’ to the region in the last three years because the party needed a strong presence of Yorkshire MPs if it was to win a majority in the House of Commons. In terms of this week’s budget, he said it had been an “empty budget” with the exception of a couple of “direct lifts” from the Conservative proposals, notably the stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers.

But that claim was disputed by Mrs Winterton, who was at Morrisons in Thornbury to see how the store has invested in training to allow staff to go from the ‘shop floor to the top floor’.

She said: “It was a budget that was about jobs and growth and it was particularly important for our region in terms of the announcements about low- carbon industries, future support for young people and training and the support for first-time buyers in the housing market.”

Mrs Winterton said she hoped Bradfordians would appreciate the Government interventions designed to ease the recession.

In terms of the role of Yorkshire Minister, Mr Hague would not commit to whether the job would still exist if the Tories won.

But Mrs Winterton said the role had been vital in bringing agencies in the region together in response to the recession and in pushing the case for High Speed Rail to come to the region.

Mr Hague said a High Speed Rail system to Yorkshire had been a Tory idea in the first place.