Businesses slam Tory NI proposal

Date: 13th November 2008

British businesses have reacted angrily to Conservative proposals regarding a national insurance reprieve.

Earlier this week, the party's leader David Cameron said in an interview with GMTV that he would give £2,500 in national insurance relief to firms which hired from the jobless register.

But the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has slammed the idea, condemning it as inappropriate for the economic climate.

David Frost, director general of the BCC, said: "Companies are not in a position to think about recruiting staff right now.

"This policy announcement would have been a valid welfare to work initiative in better times, but it is not a survival tool for small businesses during the economic downturn."

He added that more business start-ups were thinking about shedding staff than recruiting them.

Earlier in the week, the Press Association reported that Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman Vince Cable believed cutting taxation would cost more in the long term.